


Crystal Cardia

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: LoliRock (Cartoon)
Genre: AMENDMENT: actually she's bi, Active, Adventures On Ephedia, And Nat is there, And encouraging his magical princess friend in her endeavors, Being a Good Friend, Biris, Bittersweet Ending, Can't Wait Til Iris Fuckin Decks Gramorr, Developing Relationship, Drama, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Gals being pals, I had to write my gay bffs eventually, Iris is the One Straight Friend, Kissing, Many Many Headcanons, PTSD, Plot-Driven, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Slow Updates, So much fucking PTSD, Sorry Not Sorry, Started out as Character-Driven but Became Plot-Driven, Starts light gets dark gets light again, Worldbuilding, character-driven, haha - Freeform, post-Season 1, relationship angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-04-28 10:58:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5088049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set shortly after season 1. The team didn't defeat Gramorr, but levels of evil activity have dropped like a stone, giving Iris time to focus on her schoolwork and the band with the rest of the gang. It's a little strange adjusting to the ups, downs, and in-betweens of teenaged life after growing so used to dealing with monsters and mayhem on a daily basis, but Iris will manage. Now if only the weirdness that started when she caught her two best friends kissing were a monster she could fight.</p><p>As tensions within the band and Iris's own relationship starts to weaken, Izira calls on the band to help against a new, powerful threat from Gramorr, and during the operation, they recruit a few new, unexpected allies that stay on after the band returns to Earth. Although it makes gathering Oracle Gems a lot easier, a secret is harder to keep among eight people than it is among five, and with more people comes more complexity. What happens then when the secret comes out, and what happens when it's time for the final showdown?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 1: Where it Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I only have access to the english dub and I know jackshit and fuckall about the French educational system SO just take inconsistencies as it being 1am here in the states and my being too tired to look shit up.

Sometimes Iris forgot that her best friends were, in fact, not human.  
  
For all the weird alien phrases and terms and idioms, they did a remarkable job assimilating to Earthling culture— with the occasional exception, of course, but everything had exceptions. Talia sounding out every syllable of every Earthling idiom she'd ever read, for one, and Auriana's gung-ho attitude towards things Iris had always taken for granted, for another, and Amaru being neither a dog nor a cat nor a rabbit and yet somehow managing to come off as one or another or the last to everyone they talked to, for a third. But still, as far as Iris knew, no one suspected they were actually parkour-doing, wand-wielding, spell-slinging princesses from an alternate dimension sent to collect stones made of crystallized goodwill with the power to defeat an evil overlord using music and friendship. Which was great! Everything was fine, and nothing was weird.  
  
Until one day, in all seriousness, Talia and Auriana cornered her after rehearsals for an intervention.  
  
"We have some concerns about you and Nathaniel," Talia began, blunt as always.  
  
Iris blinked. "What is there to be concerned about?"  
  
"Given the symptoms you've displayed—" Auriana began.  
  
"Daydreaming, needing constant communication, grinning like a fool at absolutely nothing, planning matching outfits," Talia listed.  
  
"—It is, in my humble observer's opinion," Auriana continued, hands gesturing as she spoke. "Obvious that you have contracted a dangerous Earthling disease known as cooties!" She shouted the last word like a nine-year-old on the playground that'd caught her best friend making goo-goo eyes at an oblivious male classmate.  
  
Talia folded her arms and nodded empathetically. Iris looked from one friend to the other, scanning for any sign of jest. Seeing none, Iris sighed.  
  
"Cooties isn't a real thing, Auriana," she said. "It's just something that kids made up because they think the opposite sex is gross. _Little_ kids. Like, _eight years old_ little. We're not eight, we're sixteen."  
  
Auriana narrowed her eyes. "How do we know that's not the cooties talking?" she challenged. "Maybe it's like a parasite that infects your brain. I read about it in _National Geographic_."  
  
"You read about cooties in—" Iris cut herself off, unable to finish that thought.  
  
" _I_ , at least, know cooties is a myth," Talia continued. "Auriana's only saying so because she can't pronounce syphilis. But I _am_ worried it might be signs of another Cupid spell the twins made to mess with us."  
  
Iris rubbed her temples. "I don't have cooties or syphilis, and I'm not under a spell. I can promise you that. Sometimes, when two Earthlings— or anybody I guess— love each other very much, they do things like hold hands and kiss."  
  
"Suspicious," Auriana said.  
  
"It's _really_ not."  
  
Iris pressed her fingers to her temples, counting backwards from ten and taking a long exhale through her nose. _It makes sense, they're aliens,_ she tried to tell herself, as Talia was trying and failing to give Auriana the actual pronunciation of the word syphilis, ignoring the fact that Auriana wasn't really listening.  
  
"I'm not going to get cooties from kissing my boyfriend!" Iris finally blurted. "Jeez! Can we worry about real problems, like putting our album together?"  
  
"The concept of cooties is a very real problem!" Auriana insisted. "And if you don't have cooties and you're not under a spell, then explain it!"  
  
Iris sighed, but tried anyway, knowing there was really no escape from this conversation.  
  
"Well, kissing is like," Iris pursed her lips, trying to explain it. "It's what two people do when they love each other a whole lot, but in a very particular way. I guess the actual process is a little gross if you don't do it right, but really, it's just… something. It's hard to explain."  
  
"You smush your faces together, right?" Auriana asked, mashing the palms of her hands together and scrunching up her face. "Like that? For like, an hour?"  
  
"Not an _hour_ ," Iris muttered. She clearly hadn't been setting a good example. "And it's not just smushing faces together, you have to move your lips right so it's not awkward. You'll know when it's awkward, trust me."  
  
Auriana put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. "So… we'll know when we do it? What sort of love do you have to have to kiss someone?"  
  
Talia leafed through a book to try and answer, but she wouldn't be able to find it there.  
  
"Romantic love," Iris sighed. "You know, the kind where your stomach gets all twisty, like it's full of butterflies? Really… really violent butterflies, but it's just a saying anyway, and you get all sort of dreamy. Everything turns pink for awhile. Or is that just me…" Iris frowned thoughtfully. Was everything going pink and sparkly normal? She'd heard hazy or foggy, but never pink. How strange.  
  
"Anyway," Iris shook herself out of her thoughts. "Your heart beats kind of fast around them, and you feel like you can do anything! It's really awesome."  
  
"Like the song!" Auriana burst out.  
  
"Exactly!" Iris sighed in relief. "Exactly like the song!"  
  
"Oh, that's great, isn't it, Talia?" Auriana grinned, looking to Talia— who, oddly, wasn't looking nearly as excited as she normally did when her questions were answered. There was a flush on her dark cheeks, eyes half-hidden behind her bangs and shoulders hunched upwards, a hand over her mouth, as if she were trying to make herself smaller.  
  
Auriana frowned. "Talia?"  
  
"I think that's enough," Talia decided, turning on a heel. "Our questions were answered, that's all we need to do. I'm going to clean up."  
  
At that, Auriana looked almost sad— Iris didn't really know why. Though come to think of it, Talia and Auriana were closer to each other than either of them were to Iris. They'd known each other before finding Iris, after all, and Iris still didn't know much about what their relationship was really like. How had they met? How did they get along before Iris was there to witness it? There were a lot of questions that Iris had, and she wanted them answered.


	2. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 2: Dogma

Auriana's known spectrum of interests consisted of fighting evil, shopping, music, smoothies, and animals. She was fond of asymmetrical designs and probably more glitter than was strictly necessary if you asked Talia, and always wore something orange at all times that made her resemble a pumpkin (those cute, perfect pumpkins you'd try so hard to grow). Her front teeth always stuck out just a little bit, she had freckles that only really showed when she blushed, and her right thumb was a tiny bit shorter than her left. She was seven centimeters shorter than Talia but moved around too much for it to really be visible. She always smelled like green apple and watermelon because of her favorite shampoo, wore fruity lip gloss but never lipstick because she hated the way it felt, and gave the best hugs on their side of Ephedia— even though Talia would sooner drive a Crystal Collidum through her own hand than admit it.  
  
Really, Talia and Auriana couldn't be more different. Logically, the only real relationship they should have was a platonic one, as partners in training Iris to fight Gramorr and the lesser evils of the realms. That was really all that they should be— Partners. Colleagues. Bandmates. Just Friends.  
  
And yet the more Talia thought about it, the more some unfamiliar part of her mind refused to accept it. Why can't you be anything more, it would ask in a very un-Xerislike voice. What's stopping you? Why can't you be more than friends?  
  
Talia always told it to shut its facial hinge. She was being stupid, anyway. Auriana was bright and exciting and warm and alive, a bubbly package of fun and spontaneity with big green eyes and a smile that could light up a city, the best friend and companion Talia could ever ask for.  
  
Talia… wasn't.  
  
Of course she knew what romantic attraction felt like, sort of— at least, she'd read about it. She'd been too young to understand what love was like on Xeris, but she was certain it wasn't felt so fully. Like everything on Xeris, Talia assumed it was methodical, reasonable, and logical, carefully planned to best benefit the maximum number of people. Certainly not insects in one's stomach or dreamy pink sparkles or acute tachycardia, like Iris had described it.  
  
Talia sighed moodily, pretending to be very interested in the specks of dust caught in the screen in front of Iris's bedroom window. She spent an awful lot of time in the window seat there, enough for it to be considered Talia's Spot.  
  
"Wow, that was a big one," Iris tried to say, in an attempt to lighten the mood of the room. "Does it mean you've got an idea for our album name?"  
  
"Acute trachycardia," Talia deadpanned, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.  
  
Iris coughed awkwardly "Er… right," she noted, jotting that down in her notebook with her pink pen. "Maybe something a little less… clinical? I was thinking we name it after one of our songs."  
  
Talia shrugged. For once, there was no music running through her head— just those same frustrating chords telling her again and again that she was being stupid and she should just get on with her life.  
  
"Let's name it after the first one," Auriana suggested. "That's a thing people do, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I suppose," Iris admitted. "But our first song as a band was BFF."  
  
"What's wrong with that?" Auriana frowned. "Y'know Talia and I wrote that song."  
  
"No offense, but it sucked," Iris replied. "Let's name it after one of the songs that actually fits our target audience."  
  
Auriana blew a raspberry. "You suck. BFF was awesome. Back me up, Talia."  
  
"It sucked."  
  
Auriana flopped dramatically back on the bed, making the floorboards creak. "I don't hear any better ideas from you geniuses," she muttered, cheeks puffed out moodily as she rolled onto her stomach.  
  
"We could go with New Star Generation," Iris suggested.  
  
"That one's not even done," Talia spoke up.  
  
"Neither is the album, so what've we got to lose by naming it that?" Iris replied. "And it's better than BFF."  
  
"Unless New Star Generation sucks, too," Auriana added.  
  
"It's not gonna suck, I wrote it," Iris muttered, jotting down the idea in her notebook as she spun idly back and fourth in her desk chair. "And it's a better idea than BFF. It's got the right sound for an album name."  
  
"If it's about sound, then why do we have to bother with the song idea?" Auriana added. "'Crystal Luxtra, then. It's pretty-sounding and won't mean anything to anyone but us."  
  
"I'm not sure that naming our album after one of our spells is the best idea," Iris frowned. "I mean, if Clark Kent were in a band, he wouldn't call his first album 'Superman,' right?"  
  
Blank stares.  
  
Iris sighed through her teeth. "Right. Aliens."  
  
Auriana flopped again, and the floorboards creaked. "This is impossible," she groaned. "Was coming up with ideas always this hard, Iris?"  
  
Iris frowned thoughtfully. "Well, we've never had this much time to devote to the band before, that's for sure," she remarked. "I mean, even now that school started, we haven't had to fight off Mephisto and Praxina in ages. And we haven't heard a thing from Ephedia or the Resistance since then, either."  
  
That got Talia's attention. "You don't sound very happy about that."  
  
"I'm not sure if I am, exactly," Iris mumbled. "We went to Ephedia, but we didn't do what we set out to do. Gramorr is still there, and we still haven't found all of the Oracle Gems. We didn't really change anything, even here. We just brought the Earth back to the way it was. So what was even the point?"  
  
A heavy momen of silence passed as that sunk in.  
  
"I'm going to go grab us some smoothies," Iris suddenly decided. "And maybe track down our manager while I'm at it. Do you think they got lost?"  
  
"I bet Carissa tried to fight Doug again," Auriana said wisely. Talia cringed thinking about the last time— how had Carissa's head managed to crack Doug's phone, anyway? She'd heard Calites had thick skulls, but that was ridiculous.  
  
Iris winced, slinging her bag over her shoulder. "Let's hope not," she decided, ducking quickly out the door and leaving Talia, Auriana, and the cloud of awkwardness.  
  
Auriana spoke first, which was just fine by Talia.  
  
"Did I say something?" she frowned in concern. "You only ever get like this when something's bugging you, and usually it's my fault."  
  
"That's not true, and nothing's bugging me," Talia insisted. "I'm just… thinking. You know me. I do that."  
  
"The last time I saw someone think that hard, their brains started oozing out their ears," Auriana said matter-of-factly. "Come on, Talia! You know I can tell when you're fibbing."  
  
Talia sighed. "Auriana…"  
  
"We're friends, right?" Auriana pressed. "Friends tell each other when something's bothering them. Is it a secret?"  
  
Yes, they were friends, and that was the problem— but Talia didn't say that. She didn't answer for a long time, frowning hard at her knees and idly picking at the seams of her shorts.  
  
Auriana watched carefully, in a rare moment of observant silence, moving to sit next to Talia on the window seat. She was intent to let Talia say what it was was bothering her, or at least say something. Running her mouth wouldn't help here— if there was one thing Auriana had learned with Talia, it was when to stay quiet and watch.  
  
"We're friends," Talia managed, praying her voice didn't break. "Only I… I've been having some thoughts lately, and after practice the other day, what Iris said… it has me thinking about all of… that sort of thing."  
  
"What, the kissing?" Auriana frowned. "I didn't think you were into that whole… squishy-pink-emotions thing. You told me you had no time for fooling around when we met, remember?"  
  
Talia did remember. "Well, yes," she said tersely, idly running a hand through her hair. "But now we do have time, and I've been trying to ignore it, but it isn't going away. I think… I think I may hold romantic attraction for someone. A lot of it."  
  
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. True, she hadn't said anything about the person for whom she held romantic attraction, but she wasn't sure she could do that without the words getting stuck in her throat.  
  
"Oh," was all Auriana said, in a voice that was uncharacteristically small. But she cleared her throat and brightened up right away, before Talia could wonder about it. "Well, that's great! Have you told them?"  
  
"No, no, just you," Talia muttered, deliberately not looking at her. "I don't think I will, anyway. I doubt they like me back."  
  
Auriana snorted. "They'd have to be crazy to not like you back," she insisted. "I mean, come on! You're so…"  
  
"Long-winded?" Talia guessed, a self-depreciating chuckle in her voice. "Boring? Overly studious?"  
  
"That's not funny," Auriana huffed. "You're crazy-smart, for one thing! And you're really tough, and graceful, and super talented. You're… pretty much perfect."  
  
Talia could only stare in complete and utter shock. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal, and she should've just dismissed it as empty flattery, but hearing Auriana say things like that to her was making her stomach tie itself into knots.  
  
"Th-that's nice of you to say," she tried to downplay it, but Auriana wasn't finished.  
  
"You're really kind, too," she was saying. "You never give up, ever, even if it seems hopeless. You always know what to do, and if you don't, you can think of what to do on the fly. You can explain things in ways even I get. You're strong, in every way, in ways I can't even really understand. You're Talia, and I wouldn't want to have anyone else—"  
  
Auriana cut herself off then, as Talia's face grew progressively warmer. If Talia were looking, she'd notice a blush as deep and red as her hair spreading across her face, showing off the freckles on her chubby cheeks. Talia worked her jaw as if trying to make words come out, but nothing did— it was hard to believe that anyone, much less Auriana, would think those things.  
  
"T-to be friends with," Auriana finished, head pointed in Talia's direction but her eyes everywhere else. "Yeah. Um, at least, that's what I think."  
  
Her voice faded to a whisper with the last of her words, leaving a thick, heavy silence hanging over Iris's bedroom once more.  
  
Seconds went by that felt like years. Talia looked— Auriana was blushing. She almost met her eyes then, but every time Auriana's flickered in her direction, she found another place to look. The whole thing reminded Talia of when they were working on 'We Are Magic.' Iris had said they needed a good love song, and pulled the words out of what seemed like absolutely nowhere, face flushed to the tips of her ears and her teeth idly biting at one of her knuckles. Talia had chuckled about it, but now she was on the other side.  
  
She wasn't quite sure when their lips met, but she was vaguely aware of leaning down and tilting her chin, of tasting Auriana's lip gloss and an electrical energy that probably wasn't just the feeling of being so close to someone she liked so much. She wasn't sure when her eyes closed, or when Auriana shifted herself closer with a hand in Talia's jacket, or when Talia laced her fingers with Auriana's other hand and finally took in what felt like the first breath of fresh air she'd had in a long, long time.  
  
It felt like her entire being was caught in a whirlwind of sensation— the rush of blood in her head, the pounding of her heart, Auriana's fingers between her own, green apple and watermelon scents mingling with the vague odor of slightly-stale coffee and mothballs Iris's room held.  
  
So caught up, in fact, that she did not notice Iris opening the door and coming face to face with her two best friends kissing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't be the only one who thinks they need to kiss alright


	3. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 3: Hesitation and Regret

It had been exactly three weeks since the kiss and Auriana was now very sure she was being ignored.  
  
Not in the obvious way, of course. The others still spoke to her in a friendly manner, about boys or the band or whatever new Earth thing one of them had discovered (Earth had so many things!) or wondering how the Resistance was doing, still acknowledged her, still remembered her favorite smoothie and her spot in Iris's room. It was almost like the kiss was just an awkward and embarrassing moment that they'd practically forgotten about, between coreographing and practicing and thinking up new songs.  
  
But Talia, though her lips were moving and her eyes were focused, had blocked herself off.  
  
It was almost worse than outright being ignored.  
  
And Auriana _hated_ being ignored— being brushed off, spoken over, pushed to the background. There was always a fear that she'd slowly start to vanish, her presence fading from _oh, Auriana, I didn't realize you were here,_ to _well, I guess you can come too, Auriana,_ to _no, Auriana won't come to the party, she doesn't even like them,_ to _hey, why doesn't Auriana ever show up anywhere anymore?_ And her name would be mentioned less and less often, as people forgot that she ever even existed. She'd be forgotten, erased, never heard of again. It was one of those fears that Earthlings called deep-dark-fears, the kind that you might not even know you have until it all comes out at once.  
  
But since Talia wasn't ignoring her that way, it was harder to pin down. It wasn't even ignoring, exactly— it was like the Talia she'd kissed three weeks ago was gone, and in her place was soemone that looked and acted like Talia, but wasn't Talia. It would've been easier if those annoying evil twins had replaced Talia with a monster, but Auriana knew that the real Talia was in there, somewhere, locked behind walls Auriana wasn't strong enough to punch down.  
  
_We shouldn't have kissed,_ Talia had said. _Let's just… keep it professional, for the sake of the band._  
  
"Phooey on that," Auriana mumbled, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. Talia was being reasonable, but Auriana didn't care about reason! Kissing Talia then had been like finally opening the windows after a long, stuffy winter, like getting to the top of a big hill on a bike and riding down with your feet off the pedals. It made Auriana want to get closer, kiss harder, feel more— she just couldn't keep herself still!  
  
Unfortunately, then was not the right time. Lyna cleared her throat sharply, looking in Auriana's direction with an eyebrow raised. "Something to comment on, Auriana?"  
  
Auriana sat up abruptly, heels banging on the frame of Iris's bed. "No, I just, uh— was thinking up some dance moves! You know, for that song, uh… that new one, right?"  
  
"Right!" Iris remembered. "We still don't have moves for 'New Star Generation,' do we? Good thinking, Auriana!"  
  
Auriana sighed in relief, and Lyna frowned, looking back to her clipboard. "Right, well," she decided, in that clipped, 'you made me the manager so listen to me, thanks,' way Lyna tended to use in manager-mode. "Coreograhpy is important, but what's more immediate at this moment is the band's image."  
  
"I thought we had an image," Auriana brought up. "You know, fun and sparkles and feel-good dancey music with cute girls and bright lyrics?"  
  
"Though all of that may be true," Lyna reasoned. "It's certainly not all there is to music. Per Iris's suggestions, I've done research, and the common factor in these Earth musicians' success is that they have _substance._ Just because you didn't intend to skyrocket to international renown upon LoliRock's conception certainly doesn't mean you can get away with dodging responsibility while still on a 'local garage band' level of fame."  
  
Lyna tapped her pen on the clipboard primly, looking from Iris to Auriana to Talia. (Carissa, as this was decidedly not her department, was not paying attention.) She breathed in, posture perfect as always, in that stance that made her look like a princess about to address her country— which, in a way, she was.  
  
"Unfortunately," she finally breathed. "We can't figure out what substance this band has the potential to possess until we resolve the _tension_ between you three. Especially you, Auriana and Talia! I believe you all know what I'm referring to?"  
  
Auriana went quiet, fidgeting with her ring. Talia suddenly became fascinated with the buttons on her jacket, and Iris twisted the cap of her pen and avoided eye contact with anyone else.  
  
"Do we really need to talk about it?" Iris mumbled. "I-it was just… an awkward thing that happened, and we can move on now, right?"  
  
"We most certainly cannot!" Lyna huffed. "Honestly, the air in here is absolutely _stuffed_ with unresolved personal issues. As the manager, I decree that LoliRock business is put on hold until this is fixed. Consider this meeting adjourned."  
  
Lyna set her clipboard back on Iris's desk with a businesslike click, folding her arms with the air of authority that made Auriana want to sit up straight and say _yes, ma'am._  
  
Carissa stretched her toned arms over her head, and Auriana noted the appreciative glance Lyna gave the other then— as if saying _yes, I like this very much, I'm so glad I get to see it whenever I want._ (And there was a very real possibility that, knowing their relationship, Carissa did that on purpose.)  
  
"I wonder if the Doug creature is outside again," Carissa wondered, standing up and following Lyna out Iris's bedroom door. "It's high time I see what that 'smart phone' of his is capable of in a true match. I'll teach him to speak to you that way!"  
  
Lyna sighed, though Auriana could hear the little hint of fondness in her voice as it got more and more muffled. "I'm sure you will, but _really,_ Carissa, would it hurt to have a touch more decorum…"  
  
Iris shut the door before Auriana could hear Carissa's response, but it was loud enough that Auriana could hear the volume through the closed door.  
  
"Man, if Carissa didn't have, like, the _worst_ rhythm on this side of Ephedia, she'd be a great drummer," Auriana said without thinking. "Not that I'd want to give up _my_ spot as drummer, of course."  
  
"Drumming is great," Iris hummed. "When we record our songs, you can really let loose with it. Unless someone's invented a portable drum kit. Oh, Talia, do you know anything about that?"  
  
A beat of silence. Iris looked at Talia with a sort of strained hopefulness, trying again and again to chip away at Talia's crystalline wall with a spoon made of flimsy wood. Auriana had noticed Iris trying to pull Auriana back to her usual self, too— at least, what Iris percieved as Auriana's usual self. Poor Iris, she just wanted her friends to be happy with themselves as well as with each other, not stewing in awkwardness. That was the spirit of Great Ephedia, before Gramorr. The High King and Queen had always symbolized harmony among countries and citizens alike. Neither Talia nor Auriana were old enough to remember what it was really like before Gramorr took over, but they knew the stories, and the legends. Iris herself seemed to embody a deep desire for balance, not seeking to eliminate suffering or the like, but to make sure that it never overpowered the happiness, and vice versa.  
  
It was ironic, Auriana thought, that she was channeling the very core of Ephedian morality to try and bring her friends back to the way things were— a good sentiment, naïve as it may have been.  
  
"No," Talia said simply— too simply. "I'll have to look that up."  
  
Silence settled over the room once more. Iris anxiously bit at her lower lip, twirling her pen around her fingers. Her phone pinged with a text from Nathaniel, most likely, but she turned it off and set it in her desk drawer.  
  
Iris finally sighed. "I guess someone has to talk about the elephant in the room, huh?"  
  
"What elephant?" Talia and Auriana said in choroused confusion. Then they glanced to each other, and looked away again. _Awkward._  
  
"It's an expression," Iris tried to say. "Never mind that. You know… when you guys kissed, a few weeks ago. You haven't really been yourselves since."  
  
"I thought we'd agreed we were past that," Talia said tightly. Her hand clenched the fabric of her jacket, as if it were taking all her willpower not to fold then and there. "It happened once. It won't happen again."  
  
Auriana allowed her face to drop, resting her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. She noticed the shift of Iris's chair then, as if Iris couldn't look at her without feeling a crushing sadness as well. (Talia, then, felt like someone had stabbed her in the chest with an icicle and let it melt, cold spreading through her— though Auriana would never be able to tell.)  
  
"Why not?" Iris asked, the chair shifting as she leaned forwards. "You… well, you like each other, right? Only neither of you will admit it. That's why you left in such a hurry after practice before then, when I was talking about kissing."  
  
"No!" Talia tried to deny it. "I mean— of _course_ I like you, Auriana— I really do, it's just…"  
  
Talia sighed, and Auriana figured that if Talia were looking at her, it was the least she could do to look back. Talia had a hand on her head, dark hair spilling from between her fingers, as if trying to stave off a headache.  
  
Auriana heaved a sigh. "I like you too. But, I mean… like you said, we should keep it professional. For the band."  
  
Talia nodded, focusing her gaze on the floor. Auriana didn't want to, but she felt her vision fogging up and her cheeks flushing. It would've been easier, she was sure, if they could just fight a monster. Why couldn't they just fight a monster?  
  
"Keeping it professional is tearing you both up inside," Iris murmured. Auriana felt a hand on her knee, doubtlessly Iris's. "Is this really what's best for the band?"  
  
Auriana was sure that was rhetorical, but even if it weren't, she didn't have an answer. She fidgeted with her ring again, wishing the twins would attack or Iris's pendant would glow or something, _anything_ other than colliding head-on with how she felt about Talia and why it couldn't work between them.  
  
"You said yourself, Iris," Talia finally said, though her voice was hollow. "The Earthlings assume we're both girls. From what I've read, two girls, especially ones in the public eye, being openly in a relationship, wouldn't be the best for LoliRock."  
  
"Maybe, but…" Iris trailed off. "Who cares about that? You can't hide this sort of thing. And it's the twenty-first century, it's not like— it's not like people will suddenly stop liking us because you two happen to be dating! All it'll mean is that I am, apparently, the only one of the band who likes boys exclusively."  
  
Talia raised an eyebrow, thinking back to the times Iris ranted about how _infuriating_ Missy Robins was, with her obnoxious smirk and pretty eyes and soft lips and annoying laugh, but didn't say anything. (To be fair, Missy Robins _did_ have pretty eyes and soft lips, but that moment obviously wasn't the time to mention it.)  
  
Auriana took a breath, finally meeting Talia's eyes, but only for a second before looking back at Iris.  
  
"Will it be super-awkward for you?" she asked. "I mean, we'll try not to get all smooshy-smooshy _too_ much, but from all the Earth movies we've seen, having two of your best friends date each other is really kind of weird."  
  
"Good thing this is real life," Iris chuckled. "Well, whatever you decide, I know it'll work out fine. And a bonus, if anyone tries to give you grief about it, our head of security can take care of it!"  
  
Auriana recalled the time Carissa scared away an unpleasant internet journalist (perhaps one of Doug's even-more-annoying rivals) by staring him in the eye and crushing a napkin dispenser in one bare hand. Suffice to say, he had left quickly, and the number of incidents with invasive columnists and bloggers dropped like a stone once word got out about LoliRock's new bodyguard. (Carissa's strength had become somewhat of an urban legend ever since.)  
  
As if on cue, Iris's pendant started to glow— someone needed their help, and despite band business being on hold until the personal conflict was resolved (no one was about to argue with Lyna on that), they were still in the business of helping people that needed it.  
  
LoliRock, on principle, did not ignore someone in distress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright i KNOW carissa and lyna aren't really introduced fully yet but go watch 'home part 2' and try to say carisssa and lyna AREN'T married


	4. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 4: Ephedia's Folly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i straight up made up a few ephedia things, like the card game and random phrases. translations at the bottom
> 
> also! so sorry about the wait, i did kind of forget about it because i got a bunch of new video games between october and now, and my life has been consumed by dragon age. sorry all

Since returning from Ephedia, Iris had noticed the number of magic-related incidents her team had to deal with had dropped. On the one hand, it made trying to keep the whole magical-princess thing a secret easier, but on the other, it was worrisome— what had happened to those goofy twins? Had they dropped off the face of the planet? Or maybe Gramorr had finally gotten rid of them, which was a little sad. Those twins were jerks, sure, but after fighting them for so long, Iris couldn't help but feel stupidly attached to them. It'd be such a waste if she couldn't argue with Praxina anymore— she had a whole list of sassy comebacks that she'd never use if the twins were gone.  
  
She had to admit, getting cats out of trees wasn't quite the same as fighting evil crystal monsters.  
  
Don't get her wrong, Iris liked helping people. Even mundane things like helping someone unpack or letting a classmate borrow her notes or helping Nathaniel put up fliers in the smoothie bar made her happy. But there was something unsatisfying about doing normal-human-girl things after getting so used to fighting evil with her magical powers. Stapling fliers to corkboards just didn't have the same type of adventure about it.  
  
Iris stared pensively at the opened page of her songwriting notebook. Somehow, everything felt easier to deal with when there were monsters. She doodled an angry blob-monster in the corner, complete with swallowing buildings and going _"rawwwwr,"_ with a thunderstorm in the upper left. Feeling a spark of self-directed irony, she wrote _"relationship drama"_ along an arrow pointing to the monster, and _"me"_ pointing to the buildings.  
  
A knock on her door. "Iris?" Lyna called, voice muffled. "It's me. Are you alright?"  
  
"I'm fine," Iris called back. "Come on in."  
  
Lyna opened the door. As always, Carissa was behind her. Iris knew they were technically married, like literally actually joined in political matrimony, but they were usually subtle about it, enough so Iris could almost forget, until something happened like Lyna wearing one of Carissa's jerseys like it's the latest trend from Paris or something and Iris was smacked in the face with happy relationship energies. Though she was technically in a relationship herself— weird, she thought. Being in a relationship was different than what she'd expected, or even what she'd written songs about. After the fluttery nervousness of the crush died down, it was just like being friends with someone, except you got to kiss them without it being seen as strange, and you got to change your social media status to "In a Relationship."  
  
"The new recording gear I ordered is well on the way," Lyna told her, looking up from her clipboard. "Since _someone_ sat on our good microphones."  
  
"It was an _accident!"_ Carissa protested. "I swear the box looked like it was well out of range of my bottom!"  
  
Iris tried hard not to snort. It had taken a chunk out of the band's budget (which, according to Lyna, could stand to be bigger— but as long as they weren't trying to buy expensive special effects setups or pay for college, they were fine), but it was still kind of funny. Damage to sound equipment in general wasn't, of course, but the _absurdity_ of it, how _silly_ it was, was one of those things that never failed to make Iris laugh. The way Carissa phrased it didn't hurt.  
  
Lyna sniffed. "Well, anyway," she said, quite icily, "I've seen to it it's delivered posthaste. Once we get it all connected and figured out, we can resume recording for the album, and then we can begin the editing process."  
  
"You're fantastic, Lyna," Iris grins gratefully. "Though it's just ten songs. How hard could it be?"  
  
Lyna gasped, slamming her clipboard down with a loud _CLACK_. "Musical editing is an _art!"_ she insisted, with all the passion of one who has filled her computer's browsing history with about four years' worth of online courses from Sunny Bay Community College. "It takes hours— _days_ — fitting together what track goes where, the duration of time between each track, and not to mention pulling together and printing all the CD case jackets and tracklists, _and_ that's not even mentioning the time taken burning the music onto the disc in the first place! In addition to connecting the release of the physical CD with the digital release, it's a veritable _army's_ worth of work alone! And do you _know_ how much we'll have to expend to put Lolirock on vinyl— because as I understand it that's becoming popular now— _just_ to stay on top of the trend? Because it's a lot!"  
  
Iris blinked, gripping the back of her desk chair. Lyna had turned very red, and was beginning to look somewhat blue from lack of oxygen.  
  
"Breathe, _E'mora_ ," Carissa told her, patting her back. Lyna put a hand on her chest and sucked in a breath, pushing flyaway strands of her dark hair out of her face. When her color returned to normal, she cleared her throat.  
  
"Forgive me for that," she said, once again the epitome of professional. "I get… passionate… about things. As you well know."  
  
"So much for magic without effort, huh?" Iris muttered.  
  
"Magic is one thing," Lyna protested. "This is another. Anyway, I'll be telling Talia and Auriana the news about our hopeful continuation of the recording progress when I can get those two to pay attention to anything but their _incredibly_ _obvious_ crushes on one another."  
  
"You've noticed?" Iris asked. "I didn't until I walked in on them kissing. I mean— not that there's anything _wrong_ with that, I mean, gosh, who _wouldn't_ want to kiss a girl, they're always so soft and smell so nice— and boys are pretty great too, they have nice faces and shapes and that's cool— but _everybody_ knows that, that's how anyone can make a decision about whether they want to date a boy or a girl, and just because I like boys doesn't mean it's wrong that my friends don't—  
  
"You're rambling, Iris, honey," Lyna cut her off, politely, in a painfully Lyna way. "Also probably bisexual, but that's beside the point."  
  
"Byewhat?" Iris had never heard that term used before. Or maybe she had, and hadn't been paying attention to it. She's never been good with acronyms.  
  
"The point is," Lyna said, taking Iris's hands in hers in a remarkably motherly way, as if she were about to deliver sage advice about dealing with life problems and then ask why all these dishes were in the sink. "As I've made clear, the band will not be able to continue its functioning with those two skirting around their feelings."  
  
"I know that," Iris said, chewing on the corner of her mouth. "But what can _I_ do? They have history! And it's wrong to interfere with people's relationships— if there's any lesson I've learned from watching daytime TV sitcoms, it's that that never works."  
  
"Of course," Lyna nodded. "But perhaps they're not the only ones with romantic troubles."  
  
Iris frowned. "But I'm in a relationship."  
  
"Being in a relationship does not solve all of one's romantic problems," Lyna replied. Ah, there was the sage advice. "Trust me." She sat next to Carissa on the edge of Iris's bed, and put one hand over Carissa's.  
  
"That's true," Carissa chimed in. "I barely knew you when we got married."  
  
"How is that possible?" Iris asked, tilting her head in confusion.  
  
"Extenuating circumstances," Lyna summarized.  
  
"We had a week," Carissa explained. "Or Calix and Borealis would go to war. I don't know what it was about— real estate or something. But the reasonable parties of both countries knew they would completely anihilate each other should such a war happen. So the solution was to marry its princesses."  
  
"Although our definition of _princess_ was very different," Lyna brought up. "Carissa was the top of her training class, and I was the daughter of Borealis's emperor."  
  
"Of course, both of us were so _stubborn_ —" Carissa started to say, but Lyna cut her off with a kiss to her cheek.  
  
"You still are," she teased.  
  
Carissa scrunched up her face. "Even more so, though. At first both of us were adverse to it, because we'd never met and because both of us were so certain this was a stupid idea and our own country was in the right and would triumph."  
  
"Luckily we never tested that theory," Lyna added. "Only with card games."  
  
"Never bet against a Borealite in Tricky Nundak, Iris," Carissa said, all seriousness. "They will win all of your money and the shirt off your back."  
  
Lyna grinned cheekily. "I don't regret a thing."  
  
Iris was going to ask what Tricky Nundak was, but from the context, assumed it was an Ephedian card game. "So, you fell in love, and the rest is history?" she guessed.  
  
"And I wouldn't trade it for the world," Lyna said, nuzzling into Carissa's neck. They traded nuzzles and kisses for what felt like an hour to Iris, who was awkwardly glancing anywhere but at the canoodling princesses and vowing to not be That Couple with Nathaniel.  
  
"Anyway, why I'm telling you this," Lyna said, suddenly serious, once she pulled herself off Carissa. "Relationships are complicated because people are complicated, and people form relationships. It can be overwhelming, as I'm sure you know—" she glanced at Iris's doodle with a knowing smirk, "— While Talia and Auriana are sorting themselves out, don't you think this would be a good time for you to address what you may have, as well?"  
  
"If you know, why don't you just tell me?" Iris wondered.  
  
"I don't know, though," Lyna replied. "That would be too easy. Then the Borealites would've won easily."  
  
"I still disagree," Carissa muttered. "Calites are well-trained to mental and magical resistance."  
  
"Keep telling yourself that, _Eph'ena,"_ Lyna replied. "Don't lose hope, Iris. Love is complicated—"  
  
"Because people deal with it?" Iris guessed.  
  
"Exactly," Lyna nodded, reaching out and patting Iris's shoulder. "Besides, think of it this way— you're the princess of all of Ephedia! Would a little blob monster really be too much for you?"  
  
Iris smiled, and glanced at her doodle. It didn't seem so overwhelming now. "Not if I have the team on my side."  
  
Lyna squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. "See? That's all there is to it."  
  
"Thanks, guys," Iris smiled gratefully at them both. "That helps a lot."  
  
"Always glad to assist," Carissa said, sticking out her chest in that Proud Calix Warrior Princess Girl stance she pulled out sometimes. Lyna and Carissa stood, and then left the room, leaving Iris to look at her little blob monster in her songwriting notebook, and grin to herself.  
  
"You're no match for me," she said to it. The drawing did not reply. Iris pulled her laptop from a drawer in her desk and fired up a messenger app.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> E'mora: An Ephedian term of endearment roughly the equivalent of "babe" or "sweetie" in common conversation. Loosely translates to "my love" and used most commonly between two women. Male equivalent: Te'more.
> 
> Tricky Nundak: A popular gambling card game played all across Ephedia. Basically alien poker, except you play with three decks of cards at once, and the middle is a swirling vortex of cards, and if you lose but don't have any money you have to eat a larva or something. i know larva are involved.
> 
> Eph'ena: An Ephedian term of endearment used for spouses or lovers, reserved for those that have had a very long relationship. Loosely translates to "my heart" or "center of my being," using it casually implies the user cherishes every mintue they have had together in the relationship and that they hope they will have a long Ephedian life together ahead of them.
> 
> Headcanon: Calix and Borealis are neighboring countries despite a huge disparity in geography. They're part of a landmass slightly separated by sea from the rest of the Ephedian continent, with Calix as the mountainous north half and Borealis as the southern coastal half. They often compete with one another, but only rarely does this lead to all-out war because they're so equally matched. Upon coming up with the idea to marry the princesses of each country, the council that decided this came to the unanimous agreement of "Why in Klodznik didn't we think of this sooner?"
> 
> I love language and worldbuilding okay


	5. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 5: Abstraction in Loneliness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**Iris**  
Say Nat!  
  
**Nat**  
Sup iris  
  
**Iris**  
What would you say to hanging out with me and the girls tomorrow? Sort of a "last hurrah" or whatever before school starts  
  
**Nat**  
Yeah cool haha  
  
**Iris**  
So maybe pizza?  
  
**Nat**  
Sure haha i like pizza  
  
**Iris**  
Great! It's a date  <3  
  
Nat  
<3

* * *

  
  
The next day at lunchtime, Iris met Nathaniel at a pizza place a block from their school. She slid into the booth next to him with a grin, setting her purse down by her feet, and laced her fingers together.  
  
"Hey, Iris," Nat said, nestling his arm around her shoulders. "So how many of your friends are joining us today?"  
  
"Just Talia and Auriana," Iris answered. "I went on ahead to grab the table just in case you weren't here. They'll catch up."  
  
"What about the others?" Nat asked. "Lyna and Cassandra, right?"  
  
"Carissa," Iris corrected. "They're back at base. Lyna said she had some calls to make, and Carissa tends to just go where Lyna goes."  
  
Iris was half-right— Lyna and Carissa were at Lolirock Headquarters (better known as Aunt Ellen's basement), holding down the fort while everyone else was out, but they were most certainly not making any type of calls, unless those calls involved intense amounts of making out on the basement couch.  
  
"Oh, alright," Nat shrugged. "So until the others get here, it's just you and me?"  
  
"Jut you and me," Iris agreed, kissing his cheek.  
  
Nat grinned. He had such a sweet smile. Iris liked Nat a lot, given that he was one of the only friends she had that she'd kept since before she moved to Sunny Bay. It seemed like coincidence they'd gone to kindergarten together, but here he was, attending her high school like they hadn't missed a thing. Everyone else seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet, and for whatever reason, none of the friends she'd made after moving in stuck. Was she so sure Nat couldn't be one of those, with all she wasn't telling him?  
  
Iris tried to shake those thoughts from her head. _No second-guessing your relationships, Iris,_ she told herself. _You're on a_ date _. A double-date, with three of your favorite people in the world! This is no time for self-doubt! Leave that for three in the morning._  
  
Luckily for Iris, Talia and Auriana walked in a second later. Iris watched, wincing the entire time in secondhand embarrassment, the both of them try to walk through the door at the same time, glance at each other and then away awkwardly, Talia hold the door open for Auriana without looking at her, Auriana look mournfully at Talia's averted gaze like a sad puppy, and then the both of them walk deliberately not touching until they got to the booth.  
  
Iris waved, putting a smile on her face that was hopefully not too painful. Auriana gave a halfhearted one back, and slid into the booth first. Talia perched on the edge next to her, seemingly trying to take up as little horizontal space as possible.  
  
You could cut the awkwardness with a knife.  
  
You could cut the awkwardness with a knife, take a ream of it, and write an entire album complete with bonus tracks, dedications, copyrights, and front and back cover art on it and still have room below.  
  
Nat cleared his throat. "Hey, guys," he attempted. "You both like pepperoni, right? I, ah, went ahead and ordered the pizza." He knew Auriana liked pepperoni, and he said it as if prompting a response, and got none.  
  
"Sure, pepperoni," Auriana shrugged, playing with her purple otterbox phone case. Talia didn't even bother pretending to be happy. There were dark circles under her eyes, as if she'd been staying up too late.  
  
Nat raised his eyebrows and looked at Iris. Iris pursed her lips. "Nat and I should go check on our order," she lied through her teeth. Without ceremony, she took Nat's arm and pulled him from the booth to the soda machines.  
  
Nat blew a stream of air from his mouth. "Yow."  
  
"Yeah," Iris agreed. "It's awkward. So… the truth. I arranged this for a reason, and, well, they're it."  
  
"What even happened?" Nat asked, scratching the back of his neck.  
  
"I ran into the two of them kissing last week," Iris explained. "And they've been skirting around each other ever since. It might be because of something I said? Either way, it's interfering with the band, and Lyna says we won't be able to move business with the band forward until we solve it. So, no album progress, no new concerts, barely any rehearsals— you get the idea."  
  
"Uh," Nat said, awkwardly tucking his hands in his pockets. "Yikes."  
  
"Yeah," Iris agreed, rubbing one of her arms. "It's been weird."  
  
"Should we…" Nat gestured to the table. Auriana and Talia had at least looked at each other, which was something. Auriana said something, staring at the table, and Talia visibly winced, looked away, and twiddled her thumbs.  
  
"They're talking, at least," Iris admitted. "Maybe we shouldn't interfere."  
  
Over at the table, Talia stared hard at her hands. She had her back so straight it was starting to hurt, and bit the inside of her cheek.  
  
"That's not true," she said tightly.  
  
"Seems like it is," Auriana mumbled.  
  
"I'm not ashamed of you!" Talia blurted, finally looking at Auriana. "And if I were, it most certainly would not be 'okay!'"  
  
"But I get it, I get why," Auriana replied, looking back. She had to look up, because she didn't want to stop slouching. "It's better for the band, like you said. And now that you've got Iris and Lyna and Carissa to be friends with, you don't need me anymore."  
  
"That's ridiculous," Talia tried to say.  
  
"It's true," Auriana retorted. She took a shaky breath. Talia had only ever seen Auriana on the verge of tears once, years ago, when they were first looking for Iris and came across a family of baby cirrombo playing and catching fish in their little sharp-toothed jaws in a river just south of Greater Ephedia, and it was too damned cute for Auriana to keep her composure. This time made Talia's heart ache.  
  
"Auriana…" Talia bit her lip. _Just words,_ she tried to tell herself. She repeated them in her head: _I'm not ashamed of you. I don't hate you. I'm scared of what it means that I keep replaying the kiss over and over in my mind, remembering the way you feel when you breathe so close to me, the way your hair smells, and how much I don't want to stop— I don't know what it means, and I can't find it in a book, but by all the Realms, I think I love you and while I don't give a damn what the Earthlings think, I'm absolutely terrified of it._  
  
Wait. Not all of that. Not here. Tell her when it's just you.  
  
"It's not true," she said, clenching her fists. "It's… there's…"  
  
"What is it?" Auriana demanded, her voice hoarse. She looked at Talia straight in the eye, her own puffy and red with tears held back, her hand flat on the plastic-wood table of the pizza place. "Tell me honestly, Talia."  
  
And Talia faltered. I care about you, so much, her mind said. "I can't," her tongue said. "I-I… can't think of what to say. You deserve better. I'm sorry."  
  
Auriana pulled back, and folded her arms. "Stop lying to me," she said, staring at the table. "If you can't make up anything, then just tell me outright that you don't care."  
  
"That's not it!" Talia blurted. "Just— listen, please!"  
  
"I've listened plenty!" Auriana retorted. "Because that's what you do when nobody cares about you, you listen! And then they stop saying your name altogether, not even to talk about you like you're not there! And then there's nothing left to listen to anymore, just _chatter_ and _noise_ you'll never be a part of!"  
  
Talia pulled back. It stung, what she said. "I had no idea," she tried to say.  
  
"Stop," Auriana interrupted, turned away.  
  
Talia tried again. "Auriana, I could never forget about you!"  
  
"You've forgotten to mention plenty of things," Auriana retorted. "Like Xeris? Like your sister?"  
  
"That's not—" Talia's voice broke. "That's different. It's— it was—" She swallowed thickly.  
  
Auriana didn't respond.  
  
"Fine," Talia blurted. "Fine, then. Auriana, I didn't want to hurt you—"  
  
"Well, it's too late for that!" Auriana cut her off.  
  
"Fine then!" Talia clenched her fists. "Fine, then. Fine."  
  
She stood, and left, leaving the door to the pizza parlor to jingle when she left. Auriana lifted her head to watch her go, then left in the other direction.  
  
Nat and Iris, who had been watching the entire spectacle from the soda machines, stared first at the table, then at each other.  
  
"What just happened?" Nat asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, I know girls and guys have drama, but two girls? It's like— it's like someone turned it up to eleven."  
  
"Bass-boosted," Iris agreed. "The poor speakers."  
  
"But, okay," Nat furrowed his eyebrows. "What just happened?"  
  
Iris bit her lip. "I think I just screwed up two friendships at the same time— but I think I know why."  
  
Nat raised an eyebrow, a silent invitation for Iris to continue.  
  
"They haven't been talking," Iris reasoned. "I mean, you have to talk in every relationship, right? That's the problem with daytime TV, is no one talks to each other! So maybe if I get to the bottom of what's wrong between them, I can help them sort it out."  
  
"Uh, Iris," Nat brought up, running a hand through his hair idly. "I get what you're saying. And you know I support you in all these— these crazy sitcom-esque misadventures you've gotten into, but… about the talking thing."  
  
"Yeah?" Iris asked. "What about it?"  
  
"I've had some questions I wanted to ask you for awhile," Nat said. "Because I don't even know what you get up to anymore. You say you're busy with the band, but you won't ever say what it is that's taking up so much of your time— and I trust you, yeah, and you have your own life, but honestly? I'm kind of worried."  
  
"Oh, Nat," Iris sighed. The worst part was, he was right. "I'm sorry. If I could tell you, I would, but— I really, really can't. And there's a reason for that, I promise! It's just—"  
  
"Can't tell me that either, huh?" Nat guessed. He shrugged, and looked away. "Alright, I guess. You know, for someone I've been friends with for so long, I feel like I barely know you."  
  
Iris could only stare. Nat glanced over at the pizza counter, the board displaying their order number, and sighed. "Sorry to bail on the date, but… I've gotta go. I paid already. I don't think your friends not talking to each other is your only problem, Iris."  
  
He stuck his hands in his pockets and left. Iris could only stare, clutching the strap of her purse.  
  
She went up to the counter. "Can I get this to-go?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound to disconsolate. With her luck lately, she probably did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst angst angst
> 
> everyone needs to talk to each other. except lyna and carissa, who do all their talking with makeouts.


	6. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 6: Revelations

Leftover pizza had never been so depressing.  
  
It was four in the morning and Iris couldn't sleep. She sat at the kitchen table with a textbook propped up on an open pizza box, gnawing on her third slice absently while trying to keep her eyes from glazing over at passage after passage of chemical formulas, parabolas, and Latin verbs. Stress studying was a bad habit almost as much as stress eating, and here Iris was engaging in both. Fantastic.  
  
She slumped forward, letting her half-eaten slice of pizza fall back into the box. Nathaniel had ordered a large, intending to feed the four of them for the double-date, but that hadn't exactly worked out as he'd planned, and now Iris had a large pepperoni pizza and absolutely nobody to stop her from stress eating all of it.  
  
She didn't notice Auriana until the refrigerator opened, bathing the kitchen in florescent light where once was just the light dangling over the kitchen table. Iris squinted at Auriana, taking a can of ginger ale from the refrigerator and popping the tab with its characteristic crack and hiss. She took a sip. Iris squinted.  
  
Auriana lingered with her hand on the refrigerator door handle once she shut it. She idly traced one of the magnets holding up Aunt Ellen's grocery list (milk, flour, toothpaste, etc). It was one Iris had made at summer camp— it was _supposed_ to be a sun made of clay, but it was so caked in glitter and butterfly stickers that it was difficult to tell. Two of the rays were broken and a third was chipped, but it valiantly did its duty as a fridge magnet. Auriana idly straightened a photo strip of a ten-year-old Iris and three of her friends making silly faces in a photo booth. She seemed to smile, a little wistful, but then it dropped back to tired sorrow that Iris was not used to seeing on Auriana of all people. She kind of wanted to make a joke just to get Auriana to crack a smile for what felt like the first time in ages, but that wouldn't have worked. Iris knew by now that trying to lighten the mood never really worked. Perhaps it would've been fine if she were ten and the problem was that a friend's older brother had taken the last helping of spaghetti, but she wasn't ten anymore.  
  
"Did you know Talia once ran through an Ephedian battle line to deliver news to a soldier?" Auriana said, straightening the photo strip and then sitting down at the table. "Her brother was injured in the battle for Alamarris. She'd been waiting for weeks on whether or not he was going to be okay. We were in the brother's area about, oh, two years ago. The brother was going to be okay, but he was worried that his sister wouldn't hear about it and that she'd worry. Fort Korachus was on our way, so Talia promised she'd take the news to his sister personally. She didn't tell me then, but I figure now that something about that felt personal to her."  
  
Auriana paused the story to take a sip of her ginger ale. Wordlessly, she pointed to her can, offering Iris one. When Iris nodded, she padded back over to the fridge and tossed a can to Iris. Iris caught it easily, opened it, and took a sip. It was a welcome break from the pizza.  
  
"They haven't told you what Ephedian battlefields are like," Auriana continued. "It's best you haven't seen them personally. There was Gramorr's black crystal army and there were Ephidia's Maginauts defending the fort, and then there was us— Talia running for dear life with the soldier's letter, and me, holding up Crystarmum and trying not to scream. She kept stopping in front of everyone asking for _Nimena Diox, Nimena Diox of Luxin village,_ screaming over the noise of the battle. She could barely speak above a whisper for a day and a half after that. But we found Nimena Diox and we gave her her brother's letter, and told her that he was going to be alright. She cried, she was so relieved."  
  
Iris didn't know what to say.  
  
Auriana chuckled without humor, taking a sip of her ginger ale. "Honestly, she _acts_ all disciplined and studious, but when it's go time, she's as reckless as Carissa and more stubborn than a Tvyian mudslide."  
  
"I wouldn't have guessed," Iris ventured.  
  
"Just the way she likes it," Auriana admitted. "Honestly, if the Ephedian parliament hadn't insisted on her taking at least _one_ other person on her quest to find you, she'd have scoured every grain of sand in Ephedia on her own. Maybe she's trying to make up for losing her family by helping you find yours."  
  
That sent a pang of something through Iris's chest. She'd always had a soft heart— Aunt Ellen said it was one of the things she was blessed with— and people's personal stories always struck a chord with her, somewhere. She supposed it was a gift to be able to empathize.  
  
"And, you know," Auriana continued. She swiped at tears building in the corners of her eyes. "You know, of all the people on Ephedia— all the capable soldiers and sorcerers and Maginauts and warriors— she chose _me_ to be her shield. Me! Of all my brothers and sisters, she picked— she picked—" her voice broke. Auriana set her ginger ale down, digging her hand into her bangs and tugging, biting her lip like she's trying not to crumble completely in front of Iris. Iris reached out a hand, almost wanting to gently comfort her, but she hesitated.  
  
Auriana took a few shaky breaths. "I've been her shield all these years," she choked out, tears dripping down her cheeks. "Why— why is she ashamed of me _now_ , after all this time?"  
  
Iris's heart hurt. "Auriana, I'm sure— I'm sure that's not it," she tried to say.  
  
"I-I mean," Auriana hiccuped, rubbing her eyes. "I mean, m-maybe it's not! M-maybe I'm just being a big baby a-and wanting somebody I can't have b-but— _klatznik_ , Iris, it hurts. I'm used to being ignored and this is worse th-than anything I can ever think of."  
  
Iris pulled a box of tissues over to the table and handed Auriana one. She folded it and wiped the tears from her eyes, and did not succeed because more rushed to take their place. "Love hurts," she murmured. "I'm sorry, Auriana."  
  
"I-if _this_ is love, I don't want it," Auriana said miserably. "Wh-what kind of— of _stupid_ feeling is it that it needs to hurt so much? Why c-cant it be easy?"  
  
"I guess that's just what life is," Iris shrugged. "It's hard and it hurts and it's not fair."  
  
Auriana blew her nose, rubbing at her face with her hands. "Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't— you know— _Talia_. I can avoid some boy I met at the mall. I can't avoid Talia. Not even if I tried. I'm—" she swallowed, and smiled hollowly. "I'm her shield, Iris. Always have been. I'm her shield and she's my blade."  
  
That's intense. Iris figured that they've been working towards the same goal, partners in arms, for years before Iris even knew they existed, and if Ephedia really was as much of a battlefield as they said it was when they were still searching there, then it was no wonder they were so close. They fought back-to-back like it was the easiest thing in the world, protected one another without a second thought. It was one always knew where the other was, like they'd grown together around one another like two branches from different trees that'd intertwined as they learned more about themselves and each other. Echoes of each other, perfectly complimentary right down to the colors they wore. It only made sense that they were each other's sword and shield— or scythe and shield, considering Talia's _Crystemsabrus_ was a dual-bladed scythe. Whatever.  
  
"It wasn't so complicated before," Auriana mumbled. "You know? It was, you know, terrifying— wandering, fighting all the time, not knowing where we were going to be the next night, not knowing if we were _ever_ going to accomplish our goal— but it was simpler, in a way. We didn't have any down time to even address these… things. They just happened."  
  
Iris knows what she means, but she hears _it was easier without you_. But she knows Auriana doesn't mean it in a bad way— and it's probably true that they didn't have any down time to ask silly questions about kisses and cooties and then deal with emotional fallout when they were searching. Still.  
  
"For what it's worth," Auriana admits, grabbing another tissue and holding it to one of her eyes, "We didn't mean this for you— we wanted to train you, collect all the oracle gems quickly and quietly, and then blast Gramorr into oblivion so you could go back to a normal life. We didn't mean to drag you into a war."  
  
Iris shrugged. "If it's what I need to do to help, then I'll fight it."  
  
"It's not fair to you," Auriana says. "You didn't ask for this."  
  
"Well, I'll do it anyway," Iris replies. "I may not have grown up on Ephedia, but I know there are people there that need me. I _won't_ turn my back on them. Not now, not ever."  
  
Auriana smiles, but there's no light behind it. She takes a long sip from her ginger ale, then crushes the empty can like it's nothing and tosses it into the recycling bin. She's quiet for a long time.  
  
Iris hesitates. "I don't think Talia is ashamed of you," she promises. "I think she's just scared."  
  
Auriana snorts. "Talia _never_ gets scared."  
  
" _Everybody_ gets scared," Iris replies. " _Including_ Talia. I'll talk with her and see if I can't find something out. You two are my best friends, and yeah, maybe being romantic isn't the right choice for where we are now, but I can't stand to see you two dancing around each other like— like you're strangers. Lyna was right. We can't be Lolirock until all this is done."  
  
Auriana doesn't respond. It seems like she doesn't want to respond. She just nods, almost imperceptibly, and pulls away from Iris's comforting hand on her shoulder. She stands, slippers brushing on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, and makes her way back up the gently-creaking staircase to her room. Iris wonders if anything she could've said would've helped more, but goes back to staring at her book without reading a single word on the page.  
  
The pizza was no less depressing when Iris found Talia in the kitchen in the middle of the night, sitting on the floor next to a pile of empty Monster cans and twisting a Rubik's cube with abnormally-shaky hands. She solved it, twisted it up, then solved it again. Iris didn't know where she got the Rubik's cube, but she was very good at solving it.  
  
Iris took her pizza out of the refrigerator and sat down next to Talia, pushing a few empty cans aside. "So _that's_ where all these cans in the bin keep coming from," she said, taking a bite of the cold pizza. "I was wondering."  
  
"On Ephedia, we crush ulak berry leaves into powder with dried meats and brew it all in hot water," Talia said tersely. Her tongue is quicker than usual, but Iris can see the dark circles under her brown eyes. "It tastes like vomit, but it gets the job done. I like Earthling energy drinks better." She sets the cube down to pull another can out of the twelve-pack, chugs the whole thing, and sets it in the pile. She's had eight.  
  
"Is this where you go when you can't sleep?" Iris asked. "Chugging energy drinks and solving puzzles?"  
  
"Not always," Talia admitted. "Sometimes I wash dishes."  
  
That explained so much. "You're going to be _miserable_ in the morning," said Iris. "I think you've had enough."  
  
Iris moved to take the rest of the twelve-pack away, but fast as caffienated lightning, Talia snatched her wrist.  
  
"I'm fine," she ground out. Her hand was shaking. She was twitching, just slightly, and Iris sighed in sympathy for how bad that crash was going to be.  
  
"You're the _opposite_ of fine," Iris retorted. "You've been the opposite of fine ever since the kiss."  
  
Talia froze, except for the involuntary shaking due to the large dose of caffiene she's ingested in short period of time. It reminded Iris of her computer class— _Talia.exe has stopped working._ Then Talia.exe started working again, only she burst into tears. Iris was so thrown off by Talia of all people starting to cry that it almost didn't parse when Talia released Iris's hand and threw herself forward, head on her knees. Iris tentatively set a hand on Talia's shoulder, Monster cans clattering as her movement knocks them over.  
  
"Talia?" Iris ventured. Talia swallowed thickly, her shoulders shaking.  
  
"I'm sorry," she croaked. "I don't— You're right. I'm not fine. It's not fine, a-and why would I _ever_ expect anything different?" Because that's the way Talia does things— she holds them close, tightly locked away, until it all comes out all at once with the force of a nuclear explosion. Only in this case the explosion is heavy, choking sobs on the kitchen floor at four in the morning, fueled by caffiene and self-loathing.  
  
"I know what this is about," Talia mumbled. She gripped her knees tightly. "I know I h-haven't been at my best lately. I know I hurt Auriana. I just— I _just_ —" she sucks in a breath, clenching her jaw to make herself stop trembling. "I c-can't give her the words she deserves. It's not enough. A-and if that's not what she deserves then— then how can _I_ be what she deserves?"  
  
She breathed again. "Auriana deserves—" she gulped— "Someone who— who shines as brightly as she does. Someone who can protect her like— like she protected me… all that time… a-all that time I couldn't be there for her like she was there for me."  
  
It's heavy stuff. If she starts with the blade-and-shield business, Iris will know she and Auriana are meant to be. You can't _not_ be compatible if you use the same slightly-clichéd metaphor for your relationship.  
  
"I don't think you need to stretch much to be somebody that Auriana deserves, or that she wants," Iris ventured. "I talked to her recently. She told me about your kindness, and how much she admires you. And about… how you picked her to be your shield, out of everyone on the planet."  
  
"My shield," Talia echoed. "And I'm her blade." There it is.  
  
"You two had history long before you met me," said Iris. "And as long as I've known you, you've been close. I've seen the way you fight. Honestly, you probably don't even need me when it comes down to tactics and teamwork. And now I've seen how— how even just thinking you've hurt each other is eating you both up from the inside out. I told this to Auriana, and now I'm telling it to you— we can't be Lolirock if you two are treating each other like strangers."  
  
"But I don't deserve her!" Talia shouted all of a sudden, her fist striking the linoleum hard enough that it was definitely going to bruise.  
  
Iris hesitated. Talia was absolutely _miserable_. She'd dealt with upset friends before— heck, it was practically her _job_ — but this was different. Talia wasn't just her friend, Talia was her bandmate, her teacher, her partner-in-arms. Not only did they live under the same roof, they worked together in nearly every aspect of their lives. Iris had felt helpless before, both emotionally and literally, but never had she felt so pathetic as when Talia, so strong and graceful and noble, was coming apart right under her hands and she couldn't do a damned thing.  
  
"You deserve to be able to at least talk to her," Iris promised.  
  
"I can't," Talia hiccupped. "I'll— I'll do it wrong. S-she deserves brilliance, a-and someone who can love her and protect her like she'll love and protect them. N-not some wannabe with a chip on her shoulder too big to see past."  
  
"Talia," Iris insisted. "Talia, look at me." Talia refused. Iris lowered her head to meet Talia's gaze. Talia looked to her side, blinking back her tears even though her eyes were puffy. Good enough.  
  
"Auriana thinks you're ashamed of her," said Iris. "I know you're not— how could any of us _ever_ be? But _she_ doesn't know that. I think you're going to have to be the one to assure her that you don't hate her. This avoiding thing _has_ to stop."  
  
"She'll just run away if I try," Talia tried to protest.  
  
"No, see, that's wrong," Iris replied. "Have you even tried at all? Then you don't really know, do you? That's just science, Talia."  
  
That's true. Talia hesitated.  
  
"Talk to her," Iris repeated. "I promise, no matter how scary it is to finally say what you've been sitting on, it'll be a relief to have it off your chest. You say you want to make it up to her how she's been protecting you? Now you have a chance."  
  
Talia swallowed. "Alright," she promises. "Alright, I'll tell her."  
  
Iris let herself relax. "Good," she said. "Now that's enough caffiene. You ought to go back upstairs. Then when the crash hits, you'll at least be somewhere soft."  
  
It's sensible advice, and Talia likes sensible. So she cedes to Iris's demands and pulls herself upstairs, leaving Iris and eight empty cans of Monster in the kitchen.  
  
Iris dumped them all into the recycling bin and put the last four cans into the fridge. She sighed, sitting down with her pizza. Seems like there's only her relationship problems to work out, then.


	7. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 7: To Protect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lmao welcome to the actual plot

The doorbell rang at nine on a hot August morning. Aunt Ellen was at the community center for ceramics class and Lyna was taking care of her plants for the morning, lounging in a chair and flipping through Teen Vogue with her feet up while she made a watering can water all the plants. The windows were open and flies were buzzing around the screens while the AC unit whirred at full blast. Iris, Talia, and Auriana were all asleep, tangled up on the couch with several pages of sheet music and a dozen soda cans strewn about on the coffee table, Talia's laptop desperately clinging to its last few minutes of battery power. Auriana's foot was on the keyboard, and had been sitting on the same dissonant chord for long enough everyone had forgotten about it. Carissa had been doing her morning push-ups on the back porch, but because Lyna had the radio going, she was the one to hear the doorbell.  
  
Odd, she thought. People usually didn't visit this early unless it was scheduled. Sometimes someone would want to talk to Aunt Ellen about something or other so she'd go with them into the office, but that was always scheduled beforehand for times she was home. And sometimes salespeople would come to the door with solar panels or magazine subscriptions or vacuum cleaners or something called Gee Seuss Christ, but that was never this early. So this, Carissa thought, was odd.  
  
Carissa had paused when the doorbell rang first. She took a long drink from her water bottle and wiped some of the sweat from her forehead with a towel. At first she thought it might've been a mistake— but then it rang again, and again, almost urgently.  
  
"Lyna, there's someone at the door," she called into the winter garden, pushing open the sliding door. Lyna lifted her sunglasses, wrinkled her nose at how sweaty and dishevled Carissa was, and stood. The empty watering can fell to the ground with a hollow, plasticy _clunk_.  
  
The doorbell rang another few times. How it hadn't woken any of the others, Carissa wasn't sure. Lyna rolled her eyes. "Persistent, aren't they?"  
  
"I think it might be urgent," Carissa said helpfully, following Lyna as she stood and walked to the front door like she was marching down a runway, only in a nightgown and her hair in a messy knot at the back of her head. But Lyna was the type of person who could wear just about anything and make it work, just by the way she carried herself.  
  
The doorbell kept ringing, and it kept ringing when Lyna swung open the door, all business, and it kept ringing until the person on the porch noticed.  
  
It took a moment for Carissa to recognize her— white hair dishevled, down and tangled and full of twigs, her armor scuffed and skin covered in scratches. But then she looked up, bracing herself with her forearm against the wall, glanced back as if double-checking to make sure she wasn't followed, and Izira shot through Carissa's mind like an icy thunderbolt.  
  
Lyna paled. "C-commander!" she yelped. "Oh my— what happened? Is—" the words caught in her throat.  
  
"Oh, good," Izira managed, breathing heavily. She smiled weakly. "I was worried I'd had the wrong house."  
  
"You're hurt," Izira noticed. "Here— come on inside."  
  
Izira waved her off. "I'm fine," she insisted. "But the rebellion needs help as soon as possible. We've lost Lotharin and Starmum Basin and we're up against a wall on the western front. They're trying to get into Aphex— I've had the rebellion assist the Ephedian armies as best I can, but we're not going to last forever."  
  
There was a _thump_ from the living room, followed by a soft _ow_ — the sound of someone stretching and falling off the couch. Both Carissa and Lyna snapped their heads halfway around towards the noise. Agonizing seconds passed where the only noise was Carissa's breathing and soft, padding footsteps over the carpet. A yawn. Joints popping. Knuckles cracking. Iris padding into the hallway with her hair flopping over her face, tugging her pajama top over her stomach from where it'd ridden up. She went into the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice, and she was about to go back when she noticed the door open.  
  
"Hey, guys," she yawned. "What's—" and then she stopped, first noticing the startled expressions on Lyna and Carissa and then Izira standing on the porch.  
  
That woke her up as easily as a splash of water to the face. "Oh," was all she said.  
  
Izira sighed. "Should I wait until everyone is awake?"  
  
"No," Lyna hurried. "No, no, ma'am, not if it's as urgent as you say. Can you wake the others, Iris?"  
  
Iris nodded. "Yeah," she said lamely. "Yeah, I'll— yeah." She rushed back into the living room to wake Talia and Auriana, and that was how the breakfast table ended up holding several bowls of cereal and a tactical map, while five superpowered alien princesses and one superpowered alien rebel leader sat around it like a board meeting.  
  
Izira's armor sat on the couch while Lyna patched up her scrapes. Carissa had never felt this much tension while preparing her morning cereal before, but there was a first time for everything. Auriana fidgeted by chewing on the inside of her cheek and Talia chugged a can of Monster before asking, "So, how bad is it?"  
  
Izira shrugged with the shoulder Lyna wasn't bandaging. "Not that bad."  
  
" _Izira_ ," Talia said pointedly.  
  
"Alright, it's bad," Izira admitted. "Gramorr has, essentially, two armies— we're calling them the Red and Green armies. Lotharin and Starmum Basin are where the Imperial Highway and the Nurenti River enter into Greater Ephedia, and they were what the rebellion was using to gather information— but they flushed us out when we weren't expecting it. We're fortunate the agents in there even got back to Astaria still breathing, but of course Gramorr hit the border hard while we were still reeling. The boundary is still up, but we can't keep it up forever, especially since Lotharin and Starmum Basin were our sources of energy crystals."  
  
"Starmum Basin should be impenetrable," Auriana hummed. "I've been there. The walls alone should've kept them out."  
  
"The walls can't do anything if Gramorr's forces infiltrated it," Izira replied. "Which is exactly what happened. A city is just a city at it's core, even if it's managed to stay neutral until now. And then Lotharin finally gave in to the persistent attacks from Gramorr's beasts, and now it's under his control, too."  
  
Izira breathed. Lyna finished the last scrape and helps Izira pull her shirt back over her head. Izira rolled her shoulder and winced a little, but decided it'll do fine. "It's pretty bad," she admitted. "I led Ephedian army in the inital charge towards Lotharin, but… well, you can imagine that it didn't go very well. We lost a lot of good people in that battle and we've nothing to even show for it. Morale is understandably low back in Astaria City."  
  
Iris downed the rest of her orange juice. It was a lot to think about— but Izira needed their help, and she wouldn't have come all the way to Ephedia for it if it weren't necessary. But this wasn't just a fight with the twins, this sounded like full-on war, and Izira was asking Iris to be a part of it. The closest Iris had ever gotten to war was the card game. Would she even make it back alive, and if she did, would she even be in one piece? Would the pieces that remain even be the same?  
  
But Iris will not turn her back on people that need her. She never has, and never will. So she nodded.  
  
"What do you need us to do?" she asked.  
  


* * *

  
  
_Hey, Nathaniel? This is Iris, um— you probably knew that._  
  
_…_  
  
_Listen, I'm sorry. I'm gonna be out of town for awhile… some… trouble came up. Aunt Ellen is alright, um, it's nothing to do with her, but I don't know how long it'll be until I'm back in town._  
  
_…_  
  
_There's a lot I haven't told you. You deserve to know the truth about all this— the disappearing. I'm sorry I haven't been up front with you. I'd say it's for your own protection, but you're probably tired of hearing that. A-and you know, I'm tired of saying it. I'm tired of having to lie. It's really serious stuff, but if you know about it and if it hurts you, then you'll know the truth and I'll be able to protect you like— like I'm supposed to. Like I want to._  
  
_…_  
  
_Yeah. I'll be home soon, I promise. And then I'll tell you everything. Take care of Sunny Bay for me._  
  
_If I don't make it back, just know I'm really, really glad we're friends. But I will make it back, I promise! You can count on that!_  
  
_And thanks, Nat. For everything._  
  
_…_  
  


* * *

  
  
_Aunt Ellen, this is Iris. Please don't call the cops, I'm okay— Talia and Auriana had some family troubles and I have to go with them. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. It's, um… well, it may take awhile._  
  
_You need to know the truth behind why this keeps happening. I've been trying to protect you but I don't think I can protect you like this for much longer, if something like what's happening now ever happens again. You need to know— you deserve to know. I'm sorry I haven't been able to come out with it._  
  
_But don't worry, alright? I mean— alright, that's the worst thing to say, but I mean it. I'll make it home when all this is done, and I'll make us all your favorite casserole!_  
  
_…_  
  
_Or, well. I'll have Carissa make your favorite casserole._  
  
_I love you. I'll be home soon._  
  
_…_  
  


* * *

  
  
It was evening when Ellen checked her messages. It'd been a long, productive day for her— classes in the morning, lunch with a work colleague, and it was Bingo night at the community center. It was odd to come back to an empty house, especially with how used she'd gotten to having her house full of teenagers. Usually they'd be in the basement, and she could hear music and discussion coming from through the basement door.  
  
That night the house was silent and dark.  
  
She sighed, setting her phone down. She looked out the living room window.  
  
"I knew this would happen one day," she said to herself. "I'd just hoped we'd have a little more time."


	8. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 8: Stormfront

The first thing Iris noticed about Ephedia were the stars.  
  
She'd been to Ephedia before, of course. But for the most part she was stuck inside Gramorr's crystalline pillow fort, she hadn't gotten to see the sky— then there'd been the battle and they had to hightail it back through the vortex to Earth to prevent the world from being destroyed, and there was really no opportunity to look at the sky through all of that.  
  
The supply wagon moved under the cover of nighttime, through forests lush with both vegetable and mineral life. Izira spoke in hushed whispers to the rebels with the wagon— had it been prepared beforehand, or was this some freak stroke of luck?— and someone, possibly also Izira, had shoved Iris underneath a tarp in the back of the cart. From underneath it, she could still see the sky if she looked.  
  
It seemed crystals grew out of everything— they formed impossible formations around the trees in the forest, like scaffolding without a building. Flowers grew out of every surface— the roots of the trees and the bases of the rocks, climbing like ivy. And indeed it seemed like the resistance camp itself, although visibly haggard from the struggles it's faced at Gramorr's hands, had the potential to be as robust as the life in the forest. There are citizens and soldiers alike patching up tents and constructing a temporary garrison, keeping up walls reenforced with crystal magic and borders made with crystal summoners taking shifts holding them up.  
  
Izira led the group through it once they arrive and the crowds parted for her, whispering in respect and what almost seems to be reverence. Then they spotted Iris and all chatter hushed.  
  
"In walks the queen," Carissa murmured, gripping one of her clubs in her hand. "All eyes upon her, but she wavers not. Blessed by the stone is she who feels the struggles of a people in need and steps up to lead them with neither fear nor hesitation."  
  
Iris swallowed. She hoped that Carissa was referring to Izira, but with her luck, that probably wasn't the case.  
  
"I'm not—" she began, voice quiet. "I could never be… like _that_."  
  
"I wouldn't be so sure," Carissa replied. "They know you're going to lead them one day. Perhaps that day has not come, but it will."  
  
Iris felt sick to her stomach. "Oh," she said.  
  
Even though it was late morning when they left Earth, it was late at night when Izira led them to the crumbling ruin outside of Astaria City the citizens were using for shelter. Iris got a pallet to sleep on and picked a corner far enough away from the closest brazier that she didn't run the risk of accidentally stepping on anybody but close enough she could still feel the warmth, a bit.  
  
"Put me on watch," Talia was trying to tell Izira, quiet enough she didn't wake anybody. "You need your rest. You're still injured."  
  
"You _are_ on watch," Izira replied. "You're keeping watch over _Iris_. That's what you set out to do in the first place, isn't it? Why stop that now? Besides, we've got the rest of the King's Army now doing patrols every half-hour."  
  
Talia was not convinced. " _Izira_ ," she said stubbornly.  
  
"I'll make a round around the camp to make sure everything is going smoothly, _then_ I'll go to the medics," Izira promised. " _You_ , meanwhile, ought to try to sleep anyway, or you won't adjust to Ephedian time and it'll be miserable."  
  
Talia rolled her eyes. Izira folded her arms, straightening her shoulders like she's about to give orders.  
  
"Hey, roll back the attitude," Izira told her.  
  
"Don't tell me that, I'm not _seven_ ," Talia snipped. "And you don't have to— to watch over me anymore! I can handle myself."  
  
"I know you can." Izira sighed. She pushed Talia's bangs out of her face. Talia's shoulders hiked up a millimeter. "I know you have been for far too long. But I'm here now, like I should've been all this time. Let me handle things, at least for tonight, alright? You can go back to being Serious Talia in the morning."  
  
Talia sighed. "Alright," she caved. "Goodnight, Izira."  
  
Izira hesitated for a moment— like she wanted to pull Talia into a hug, making up for far too many lost. But Talia turned and didn't give her the chance, so she left the fort.  
  
Iris set her head on her sports bag. Ephedia wasn't that cold, but she tugged her jacket further around her shoulders anyway. She didn't feel tired, but Izira was right— if she didn't at least try to get some rest while it was nighttime, she'd get tired during the day and it'd suck.  
  
Auriana sat with her back to the wall, idly combing her fingers through her hair. She had her hair tie around her wrist that way she does when she's about to go to bed, and Talia always worries that one of these days it'll be too tight and she'll end up cutting off her hand, but Auriana just tells her she worries too much and that she'll be fine. And she always is.  
  
Talia sat next to her. Auriana glanced her way, then looked back at the weeds growing between the bricks in the ground.  
  
"You should get some rest, too," Talia told her. "I'm told it'll be a long day tomorrow."  
  
Auriana hummed acknowledgement. She tucked her hands in the pocket of her big yellow sweatshirt. Her hair, long and a vibrant orange with Ephedia's magic bringing it to life, tumbled down around her shoulders and over her face and Talia wanted to put her hair behind her ear, look at her face and maybe tell her what she needed to hear, what Talia had been trying and failing to put into words this whole time.  
  
She did no such thing. Talia swallowed. "Feels like old times," she attempted. "With more people this time, and we'll be going back to Earth after it's done, but— you know?"  
  
Auriana shrugged. "A bit," she admitted. "Can't say I missed sleeping on the ground with one eye open, waiting until we moved again. Trying not to die every single day." She let out a halfhearted chuckle. "Six years in the Academy couldn't have prepared me for _you_ , you know."  
  
"I know," Talia replied. "And… for what it's worth, I'm sorry." Auriana almost looked at her then, looking up in hope. Talia cleared her throat. "Y-you never asked for any of this. If I had it my way, I would've found Iris quickly and trained her myself so we wouldn't have to deal with— with all these people getting hurt."  
  
Talia realized the moment the words were out of her mouth how it would sound. "I don't regret it, of course," she backtracked. "I mean— Auriana— I don't regret meeting you, or asking you to join me in this. And I _certainly_ don't regret the time we've spent together. I just wish—"  
  
Her voice broke. Auriana looked up. "Wish what?"  
  
Talia shook her head.  
  
"Wish what, Talia?" Auriana pressed. "Say it. For _once_ in your life, settle for something _not_ being perfect!"  
  
"I just— _can't!"_ Talia blurted. "You _deserve_ perfect! But whenever I try to say what I need to the words just— they won't _work_. And you deserve somebody who can remember what words are at the right times. Somebody— somebody as perfect as you." She swallowed. _Why_ was this so hard?  
  
Auriana reached out and set a hand on her arm. Talia wanted desperately to curl into the touch, accept it, like they were fourteen again and things were simpler and they could curl into each other behind Auriana's shield against heavy Ephedian rain. But they weren't fourteen, and things weren't nearly as simple as they had been back then.  
  
She pulled away. And really, that was the whole root of the problem.  
  
"Talia, I don't _want_ perfect," Auriana said. _I just want you,_ was what she didn't. It was the truth that stuck in her throat because _who cares? There are tons of people who can give Talia what she wants, what she needs. Why would she waste a second on you when people tons better exist?_  
  
Talia shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said hoarsely. She forced a smile— bitter, painful, like she was holding back tears. "Can we just— can we talk about all this once we're back on Earth?"  
  
Auriana nodded. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, sure."  
  
"I have your back," Talia told her, promised her. They always had worked well together like that.  
  
"And I have yours," Auriana replied.  
  
For the time being it was business— for the time being, that was how it was supposed to be.  
  
None of them got much sleep that night— nor did any of them mention this. But Izira knew, and to some extent she'd expected this. With any luck they'd be able to adjust quickly enough, especially since they weren't in Ephedia for a vacation.  
  
Izira had recovered well— Iris supposed it was only natural that Ephedians would heal quickly from superficial injuries if they were also stronger, faster, and more agile than your average human. Maybe it was something to do with the magic that seemed to run freely on Ephedia, or maybe it was just an Izira thing and she was just that tough. Considering her relation to Talia, Iris wouldn't have been surprised.  
  
"I've come up with a plan," Izira announced to those assembled, planting her hands firmly on the slab of crystal the rebellion was using as a makeshift war table. The map is pinned to the board on top by little spikes of crystal, all in Xeran blue. There are pebbles signifying various divisions of Izira's forces at various points on the map. Izira emanated authority and skill, as if she were born to make tactical maneuvers that would've given others a headache. She stared down the pebbles on the paper battlefield with a sniper's eye, the gears in her head turning as Iris watched the magic happen.  
  
"Lyna, Carissa, Talia, and Auriana," she ordered. The four of them jumped to attention. "You will go with General Adaia to lead the main assault on Starmum Basin. Auriana, how well do you know the layout of the fort?"  
  
Auriana swallowed. "I took a trip there with my class in the Academy," she said. "It was a few years ago, but… yeah, I remember it pretty well."  
  
"Good," Izira nods. "Remember as best as you can. Talk with the General before you leave so you've got a decent floor plan."  
  
Auriana nodded. Izira slid a pebble from the camp just outside Astaria City to Nurenti River. Then she picked up another and looked at Iris.  
  
"Iris, you're coming with me," she said. "They'll take the main bulk of the forces to Starmum Basin. Gramorr has control over what remains of the Voltan Shields there, under the control of some… thing we've been calling The Beastmaster, in addition to the rest of the Red Army."  
  
"Another Dark Summoner, or… is it a monster?" Iris ventured.  
  
Izira shrugged. "We don't know. It behaves like a monster, but it's clearly not only making decisions based on Gramorr's orders. We have a scholar here, Shura, who believes it may be some sort of corrupted sorcerer. Whatever it is, it's tough and it gave me this." She set a hand on what had been a gash in her stomach, now patched up and healed with magic and Lyna's salve. Iris feels sick— if whatever that thing was was strong enough to take Izira out of a fight, what would it do to her friends?  
  
"Oh," Iris said. That was all she said.  
  
Izira, noticing her apprehension, gave her a reassuring smile. "Hey, don't get so down already," she said. "You haven't even heard the rest of the plan."  
  
Iris swallowed. "So what's the rest of the plan, then?"  
  
Izira cracked her knuckles. "Right, so, while they're _there_ —" she placed the other pebble on the map, east of Lotharin. " _We'll_ be sneaking below the Imperial Highway, into Lotharin. Lotharin is under control of the Sorcerer and the Green Army, which is smaller and it's mostly Gramorr's division of Maginauts— what we've been calling the Dark Summoners, to save time. They're not as tough and not as numerous, but they _are_ skilled, so fighting through them is out of the question. And before you ask, Carissa, that is _exactly_ why you're on the team dealing with the Shields."  
  
Carissa opened her mouth to argue, but that's a fair point, so she closed it.  
  
Izira clapped her hands together, all business. "Are we clear?" she asked. "Good. We march in an hour. Prepare for battle."  
  
The meeting adjourned, everyone in the room saluted like it was nothing— Iris had to look around to see what everyone was doing before hurriedly imitating it, if only to not look like an alien in a room full of Ephedians. For a planet that was supposedly her home, Iris felt very out of place.  
  
Izira caught her as everyone else was leaving the strategy tent— which was less a tent and more a makeshift shelter made of crystal walls and a flap of canvas as an entrance.  
  
"Iris," she said, in that even tone of voice Iris had heard many, many times from Aunt Ellen that meant I'm expressing parental concern for your well-being. "Are you alright?"  
  
"Yeah," Iris promised. "Just, you know. Tired from the trip."  
  
Izira raised an eyebrow. That was fair, even Iris didn't believe herself when she said that. "Really?"  
  
"Alright, not really," Iris caved. "I'm just— it was all really _sudden_. The whole fighting thing hasn't felt, you know, real until now. It was different when it was just protecting my hometown from the same two of Gramorr's doofy minions. Now there's— there's _strategy_ , and _armies_ , and I try not to think about it but one day they're all going to look to _me_ to lead them. I can't do that! I'm just one kid."  
  
She swallowed. "I keep seeing them," she murmured. "When I try to sleep. Monsters, I mean. I don't— I know I have to fight, but I don't want to. I'm— I'm scared." She clenched her fists hard in her gloves. The armor was heavy and protective but somehow it felt more like a stifling iron case than protection. Izira had said to wear it was her birthright, but if her birthright was feeling terrified of every movement out of the corner of her eye, she didn't want it.  
  
Izira nodded. "I understand your fear, Iris," she said. "You're still young— too young to be here, if you ask me, but Gramorr isn't fair and he's not going to wait until you're my age to attack. What you can do now is remember that I'm going with you, and I have a plan and I have your back. I'll make sure you get home safely." She set a hand on Iris's shoulder. "Alright?"  
  
"Alright," Iris nodded. "Thanks, Izira."  
  
Iris took a breath. "Should we go win that battle, then?"  
  
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Izira agreed, grinning. Izira went ahead and left, ready to spur her army on to victory, and Iris tried to calm her stomach. She repeated _we'll win_ to herself, perhaps hoping she'll believe it.


	9. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 9: Lotharin Part 1

The Imperial Highway was magnificent— a huge raised walkway supported on pillars so thin it must be some miracle of engineering or magic that it managed to be so big and yet so stable. Vines climbed up the columns like they owned them, and at ground level it was so thick with vegetation that it felt like another world. Iris and Izira began following the highway before dawn, but even though it must've been hours after sunrise, the thick curtains of vines and moss and leaves made it look like it was night. Tiny glowing insects floated and fluttered, magical fireflies in all shapes and sizes. The scale plating on Izira's armor glittered gold in the low light, as she held a crystal lantern with a little violet flame to light the way. Her cloak, dark purple and made to blend in with the shadows, even glimmered. She looked like all a leader should be-- and everything Iris would never be.  
  
According to Izira, Lotharin had begun as a merchant town of little consequence, on the soil of the lesser Ephedian territory of Nexius, notable only for its convenient location exactly a day and a half's walk from the castle. As the highway went up, so too did Lotharin, and soon enough merchants from all over the continent had moved there to sell their wares. Lotharin became a citadel that served not only as a rest stop for travelers on the highway, but a hub of activity in its own right. Their entrance was in the lower levels which, as is the case in so many multi-layered cities, had always been a place where the lines of law were bent or smudged or broken altogether, a hive of operations both semi-legal and completely illegal. Smuggling, mostly. With luck, they wouldn't see any of that business, since Gramorr had cracked down long ago. Smugglers, though, were a tricky bunch and there was no telling if the undercity of Lotharin remained what it had been.  
  
It stunk of rotting fruit and old blood, a hot stench that made Iris's eyes water. Izira extinguished her lantern and pulled her hood over her head. She stopped Iris by one of the many inconspicuous doors leading out of the city and looked through the keyhole, then listened closely. Iris's fingers worried at the gems in her wand, the only weapon either of them had, as far as Iris knew— Izira hadn't given any sign that she had an artefact or a weapon of any kind, unless she had an armory's worth of knives hidden under her gambeson. Which, now that Iris thought of it, wouldn't be surprising given that Izira seemed to be just _full_ of surprises.  
  
Izira nudged the door open and scanned the room it opened into before nodding to Iris. The door shut behind them, leaving them in a room full of barrels full of some kind of black powder— gunpowder, probably, or the Ephedian equivalent. Iris stayed away from it as Izira surveyed the alleyways of the undercity outside the door. It seemed to be empty, or at least Iris didn't hear any telltale sounds of anybody else, but one couldn't be too careful.  
  
Izira ducked back inside. She held up four fingers, then pulled a tiny spherical flask stopped with a little cork out of her cloak. Iris looked outside the gunpowder room as far as she dared, and saw that Izira was right-- four guards in black armor at the end of the alley, standing at the base of a stairwell behind a locked gate. Iris heard indistinct chatter. They must've been on break-- either that, or the Green Army's patrols weren't worried about intruders in the undercity.  
  
_You hold their attention,_ Izira had told her before they left. _If we have to fight, I'll be the one to finish them off. Draw them away from me so I can do that._ And it was an easy enough thing to do. Iris shouted in a wordless taunt, casting _Crystemsabrus_ on her wand with a practiced motion. The pink crystal longsword seemed to glimmer in the low light as if there was light itself trapped in the blade— magic, Iris figured, because what _wasn't_ magic on Ephedia? Iris had never been particularly athletic, but sometimes she thought dealing with these creatures would be much easier with a good old-fashioned baseball bat.  
  
She held up her crystal shield for the first blow, but held her stance. Four at once was something new— she put her back to a stack of crates and deflected where she could. But the important part was to keep them away from Izira, and if that meant smacking them in the face with the flat of her blade, that is what she did. She heard one of the guards' jaws go _crunch_ when she did, and he crumpled. She felt a little sick, but there was no time to dwell. Another blade glanced off her shield. She kicked its owner in the stomach, then smacked her shield into him hard enough to dent his helmet. Two down, two to go.  
  
The third was different. He was quick and nearly got in a lucky knife to Iris's neck, but she caught his blade on the hilt of her sword and shoved him back. He glared through the slits in his helmet. She growled. Magic flowed through her veins like she was born to fight— she was almost _enjoying_ the skirmish. _Bring it on,_ she wanted to shout to all of Gramorr's little patrolmen in the undercity. But she wasn't an idiot, so she wasn't going to.  
  
Another swipe at her cheek— this one cut a gash under her eye. But she retaliated, or was about to when she felt a spire of crystal magic grip her elbow. The fourth guard, a crystal summoner in long robes, held up a magic circle trapping her in place. She deflected the next blow from the rogue with her shield, but her sword arm was useless. If any was a good time for Izira to strike, it'd be now.  
  
Izira thought so, too. Something shattered on the ground and the area filled with smoke. By the time it cleared the guards were all on the ground and Izira had her foot on the rogue's chest, with a bow made of crystal drawn and nocked with an arrow made of magic. She aimed at his throat.  
  
"Keys," she demanded. Without a word, the guard pulled a ring of keys off his belt and handed it to her. Izira tossed them to Iris. Was she going to kill them?  
  
Izira didn't look away from the trembling guard. The mage was unconscious and the two other guards stared, too petrified to even dare move. Without a word, Izira drew her bow further back for the final blow.  
  
"Don't—" Iris blurted. Izira's concentration snapped. She turned to Iris, her foot still pinning the rogue down.  
  
"What?" Izira demanded, frowning.  
  
Iris swallowed. "Don't kill them," she said, trying to sound authoritative, like a future queen should be. (Like everyone expected her to be.) "They're already beaten."  
  
Izira scowled. "Alright," she caved. She looked back to the guards and relaxed her bow, the arrow dissolving. "By the grace of Ephedia's rightful queen, you have your lives. I trust you to not endanger them further by crossing me."  
  
The guards nodded. The two warriors picked up their crystal summoner friend and dragged him, his head lolling and his robes dragging on the ground, back down the alleyway as the rogue scrambled to catch up. Iris breathed.  
  
She handed Izira the gate keys. Izira's crystal bow collapsed into what had been the grip— a little thing that fit in the palm of her hand. Izira unlocked the gate and Iris glanced back where the guards had run.  
  
"Don't waste your time worrying about them," Izira told her, pushing the gate open with a soft creak. "There are going to be _tons_ of mooks like that that aren't worth your mercy, and all of them will kill you, given the chance."  
  
"They're still—" Iris felt something sour in her mouth. "But they're still _people_. Doesn't killing them make us just as bad as Gramorr?"  
  
Izira chuckled. " _Just as bad,_ " she repeated, as they started up the stairs. "I think we're in no danger of being _just as bad_ as _Gramorr_ — unless we try to conquer a country, imprison its ruling families, and destroy what doesn't comply. Not to mention seizing roads and means of production for citizens, thus making them dependent on us in order to survive. Killing his minions in self-defense is _hardly_ comparable."  
  
Her eyes darkened. Iris felt something very deep and very angry. "And, as long as we're telling the truth," she continued. "I'd kill an _army_ of his minions, right up the chain of command to the top, if it could prevent something like this from happening again."  
  
Iris can understand that— still, she feels a little sick at the thought. The soldiers are more than likely just doing what they're told. Gramorr himself, she can understand better. Not that she relishes the thought of actually _killing_ him when a good punch to the face will please her, but she can understand the desire, and if it's the only way to stop all this, then she'll do it.  
  
She swallowed. Izira took her silence as agreement.  
  
They crept across a walkway to another set of stairs, this one unguarded. Another got them onto the main level of the city. Here, guards stood on every other corner as citizens milled about, trying their hardest to go about their business as normal. Iris clung to the side of the building, praying they'd go unnoticed, as a crystal summoner in black and green, clearly of a high rank in the Green Army, walked through the streets. Pedestrians skittered to the sides. The summoner's staff crackled with dark crystal magic, radiating arcs of dangerous-looking lightning. It made the hair on the back of Iris's neck stand on end and the air smell like ozone.  
  
Izira pushed her further into the shadow. In the longest five seconds of Iris's life, the summoner strode past like they were on a nice springtime walk in the park, taking their sweet time but not looking anywhere but forward. Iris let out a silent breath when they left.  
  
"This'll be difficult," Izira whispered. "Our best bet is to track that summoner and find out where they report. That's how we'll find the Sorcerer."  
  
"So if we take out the Sorcerer, we free the city?" Iris asked.  
  
Izira shrugged. "As free as the city can be under Gramorr, yes. Taking out the leader usually leaves the rest scrambling around in chaos. We can escape in the commotion once we've taken care of the Sorcerer and sent the signal to the other group in Starmum Basin. Then the Ephedian Army will liberate the rest of the city."  
  
Iris nodded. "Yes, ma'am."  
  
"You don't have to call me that," Izira told her, climbing up an exterior staircase without actually using the stairs, pulling out a spyglass from the infinite pockets of her cloak. "If anything, I should be calling _you_ ma'am."  
  
Iris followed, using the stairs. "You don't have to," she tried to say.  
  
"It'd be proper," Izira replied. "With you being the heir, and all. Every etiquette lesson I've ever had about dealing with Greater Ephedian royalty says I ought to be bowing and scraping for the privilege of laying eyes upon you."  
  
"When you put it like that, it sounds weird," Iris mumbled. "Please tell me I won't have to deal with that from anyone for a long, long time."  
  
Izira chuckled. "Sure," she said. "I can't promise anything after your coronation— but if all goes as planned, you won't be coronated until you're at least my age. Maybe not at all, since your parents are still kicking and will be for another, oh, century or two."  
  
That's a comfort, however small. Izira crouched behind the railing of the building's roof and trained her spyglass on the towers in the center of the city— massive spires of crystal with bridges and walkways connecting to other spires along the boundary walls and around the city itself. It was tall and precarious and Iris had never been afraid of heights, but she stepped back from the edge of the roof anyway.  
  
Her cell phone rang, sudden enough that Iris jumped. Izira raised an eyebrow, watching Iris fumble with her cloak and fish it out, nearly dropping it with her shaky hands. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw it was Nathaniel. She couldn't just ignore it, but she couldn't leave it ringing or someone would notice.  
  
"Can I—" Iris tried to say. Izira nodded and went back to surveying. Biting her lip, Iris pushed the answer button and held the phone to her ear.  
  
_"Iris? Hey— Iris?"_ he was saying. _"You're there? I got your message and— and—_ Jesus tap-dancing Christ, _I know you have stuff to do, but could you not like, give me a_ little _more heads-up before going off on some kind of quest? And what was all that about not making it back? Where_ are _you?"_  
  
Iris swallowed. "Nathaniel, listen—"  
  
_"I'm not angry!"_ Nat shouted, angrily. _"I mean— okay, yeah, I sound it, and I'm sorry, but mostly I'm just— kind of frustrated? And also worried, and maybe a little bit terrified for your well-being? Okay, you know, I don't care where you are or why you're there or why you thought a fucking_ phone call _was the best way to let me know, but are you okay?"_  
  
"Yeah," Iris promised. "Or, well. Alright. No, I'm really, really not okay, but—"  
  
_"But you can't tell me the details?"_ Nat guessed. He sighed. Iris could picture him, millions of miles away, at the high school because school was back in session. He'd be standing outside the cafeteria and running his hands through his hair, like he does when he's nervous. It'll be an absolute mess, given how upset he sounds. Nathaniel didn't lose his cool very often, but usually he had a good reason when he did.  
  
Iris let out a breathy chuckle without humor. "Even if I could, I wouldn't know where to start. I'm sorry— I should've told you a long time ago."  
  
_"Iris, how long has… this… business… been going on?"_ he asked. Iris imagined his hand falling to his side, or maybe resting in the pocket of his sweatshirt.  
  
Iris chewed at her lip. "Since this spring," she admitted. "You know when Auriana and Talia came into town with the auditions for the band? That's when this began."  
  
Nat was silent. It all made sense. He'd _thought_ it was a bit strange that suddenly Iris had two friends living with her— _supposedly_ exchange students, but Iris was home-schooled and he'd never seen Talia or Auriana attending any classes. He'd seen them around town for a couple of days before, with their cat, always whispering to each other too fast for him to catch anything. It'd seemed pretty normal at the time. Even the auditions— nobody had ever even _heard_ the name Lolirock before they rolled into town with fliers made with an entire ream of pink construction paper and stubby colored pencils from the community center crafts room, but Nat had chalked it up to him not being Lolirock's target demographic. It made perfect sense to him. And their overnight success was obvious once Iris was the frontman, at least it was to him. He'd just been happy that Iris was getting out of the house and doing what made her happy. But _now_...  
  
The more he thought about it, the less it seemed like a coincidence. Iris could sing _loud_ , sure, but who'd ever blown out a building's fuse box with volume, and since when did lake water freeze in the summer, freak storm or no?  
  
_"Iris,"_ he began, slowly. _"Does this have to do with all that weird stuff that_ stopped _happening around you this spring?"_  
  
Iris made herself take a breath. Of _course_ he'd pieced it together. Though it wasn't hard to figure out, given the timeline of events— two unaccompanied teenagers and their cat move into town and set up auditions for a band, which then becomes an overnight success as soon as Iris joins, and at the very same time, the strange things that happen around Iris when she sings _stop_ happening with seemingly no explanation? That definitely spelled fishy.  
  
She was about to reply when something exploded from the side of the main fortress, crackling with red lightning and billowing smoke. Izira grabbed her arm.  
  
"We should move now, while they're distracted," she decided, in that army commander voice. "Let's go."  
  
"I have to go," Iris said to Nat. "As soon as I'm back, I'll— I'll tell you _everything_. Promise." And she hung up before he could get in another word.

* * *

 

Iris once went on a trip to Italy when she was about thirteen— it was aunt Ellen's idea, because Iris had been in a slump from various sources that altogether made it difficult for her to have her usual sunny disposition or, indeed, take less than an hour getting out of bed. She'd thought that going somewhere new would get her out of that rut, and maybe put a bit of color back in her cheeks. Whether it'd worked or not wasn't the point. They'd visited a lot of churches and cathedrals because Aunt Ellen liked that sort of thing (even though Iris would've preferred to stay inside). But there had been soaring columns and frescoes and mosaics made of stone lain together so tight it'd be impossible to remove one piece without pulling up the entire floor, and peaked and domed ceilings so high that it almost felt like they'd collapse but they haven't in all the time they've stood. It'd been breathtaking, but it _paled_ in comparison to here.  
  
Dark crystal had corrupted and obscured the Palace, but here, it all mingled together. Light glimmered within the dark outcroppings of crystal climbing the pillars and congregating on the ceiling like ivy on a ruin. Wheras the dark crystal in the Palace had been intending to stifle the light, here the magic all worked together, enhancing energy of all kinds. It felt like there was energy streaming from the ground itself, up through those pillars and arches and buttresses, into the peaks and spires. Iris put her hand on a pillar and it seemed to hum. She recoiled, startled, but then put her hand back.  
  
It was _definitely_ humming. Iris didn't know the tune, but it touched something so deeply embedded in her being that it was almost scary.  
  
Izira put a hand on her shoulder. "Careful," she warned. "This place is a focal point for magic. What do you want to bet that's why the Green army is so special despite their small size? Magic from here. That's Lotharin's _real_ power."  
  
"Whoa," Iris breathed. She pulled her hand back. "It was humming."  
  
Izira looked at her. "That… _probably_ isn't good," she guessed. "Let's move. We don't want to be around if it starts _singing_ , too."  
  
The lesser-used hallways were empty and dark. They were lit by hovering fireballs inside crystals kept aloft only by the innate magical energy of the fortress-- no strings. Iris looked but she couldn't even see the thinnest of wires. She shouldn't wonder, at this point, considering she used the very same magic as special effects for her concerts.  
  
They passed a doorway. A dank, heavy breeze tugged at Iris's curls and she stopped in her tracks. She turned, back to the crossbreeze. The gaping maw of a half-open doorway faced her, heavy wooden doors studded with green crystal. Iris felt uneasy, and yet-- everything in her told her to go inside.  
  
"Keep moving," Izira whispered. "We don't have a lot of time."  
  
"What's in there?" Iris asked. "I just-- I'm having this _feeling_ that we should investigate in here."  
  
Izira pursed her lips. So yes, Iris outranked her by birthright. But Iris had no combat training and had agreed that she'd defer to Izira's authority on this mission-- whatever the actual agreement was, anyway. Izira was older and had two years of practical combat experience under her belt. By all means, she _should_ be the one to decide that no, they're not exploring the creepy room beyond the doorway, but-- well. Izira's parents had always told her to trust an Ephedian when their gut tells them something.  
  
"You go investigate," Izira decided. "I'll keep watch here in case someone comes by. If anything attacks you, you call for me, alright?"  
  
"Alright," Iris promised. She swallowed and put her hand on one of the doors. The slightest push opened it the rest of the way, completely silent. It almost felt like it was beckoning her in. Was the breeze her imagination, or was there an exit to outside somewhere nearby?  
  
The answer was the skylight— light from the surface was streaming in through a grate in the high ceiling, obscured with tall but empty green crystal bookcases with vines of dark crystal crawling along their sides and shelves like intricate carvings. There were stacks of books on a set of tables in the center of the room and scattered papers, and chairs knocked over like everyone had left in a hurry. The crystal lamps were still on, fireballs still burning, but the lab was empty. And it was a lab, wasn't it? That's how it seemed.  
  
There were shards of crystal on the ground that crunched under Iris's boots. She took a moment to ask herself if she was _really_ doing this— when has following her instinct _ever_ gone well? It tended to work out, of course, but not after getting herself into trouble. For awhile there it seemed like her life was following a problem-of-the-week format: Have a situation, someone needs help, trace the problem to the twins making trouble, fight them, solve problem, get Oracle Gem. They'd somehow gotten half of them like that, and supposedly the end was in sight, but there were so _many_ Iris wondered just how they knew what they were even doing. Where did they always come from, anyway? They couldn't just _blink_ into existence when they sensed the problem in question was solved. Talia had a theory that Oracle Gems were little trinkets of pure, compressed good will that appeared in an honest showing of it, which she _said_ wouldn't be out of character for the stories she's heard of the Ephedian rulers. Iris wouldn't know.  
  
It all felt very formulaic. Iris, for one, was glad they were done with that. When all was said and done, she liked being able to focus on her songwriting like a normal pop star.  
  
Was that an oxymoron? Whatever.  
  
Her foot bumped against a book in the floor— she jumped, eyes scanning her surroundings, but all was quiet. Carefully, as if the book might contain a bomb, she picked it up. Squares of light from beyond the grate fell over the ink on the page. It looked like a journal, or some kind of logbook, but she couldn't say for sure. She could read the writing even though she knew she'd never learned it. This was not the time to look that particular gift horse in the mouth.  
  
_Project Crystalarium notes: Doctor Gwarnen B. Atticus_  
  
_83.44.0.0.92.9.0. I don't think this is going to work. Kyzar says I'm crazy, of course it will— but he would say that. He's the one studying theoretical. If he were the one crunching the numbers of it, he'd say different. Does he know the risk Gramorr is taking? If this goes wrong, it could kill us all!_  
  
_Reminder: ask about new life insurance policy._  
_-bread_  
_-myzar_  
_-gjira lichen_  
_-candles_  
_-polish_  
_-bug zapper_  
_-pencils_  
  
_89.50.2.1.99.18.0. Started sample experiments on cave rats. Subjects 1 and 5 died; not healthy enough for the process. Subject 2 shows promise. 3 and 4 have shown no signs of the process taking hold. It could be that something in diet or body chemistry prevents the magic from manifesting. I pity the mook who has to trap these little guys._  
  
_92.52.3.1.0.26.0. Subject 2 seems to be fighting off the magic— treating it as a parasite. Nothing from 3 and 4, though last I saw, 3 was looking sick from it. Individual magical aptitude may have something to do with it. Add that to notes. Let Gramorr know in today's report._  
  
~~_Gwarnen th_~~  
_~~Gwarnen the invincible~~ (cheesy)_  
~~_Gwar_~~  
_~~The final Gw~~ (taken)_  
_~~Gwarnen, world-eater~~ (impossible)_  
~~_Gw_~~  
_~~The Gwarnen that death forg~~ (ridiculous)_  
_~~Death-defying Gwar~~ (false)_  
_~~Gwarnen the all-consum~~ (no)_  
~~_The all-powerf_~~  
_~~Eater of worlds, Gwarn~~ (still no)_  
~~_The indominable_~~  
~~_The inevit_~~  
_~~The indominevitable Gwa~~ (not a word)_  
  
_98.56.5.2.0.31.1. Subject 2 died. It was gruesome. We threw it down the body chute with the rest. 4 shows promise now— intelligence is heightened, can see crystal growths in nail beds and inside ears. 4 seems to have accepted the crystal as a fellow organism. I always figured crystal was alive, but I didn't realize it could be like this._  
  
_0.57.6.2.0.42.6. Subject 4 was a success. Bringing in more test subjects. Gramorr is pleased. I don't like this job anymore._  
  
_0.60.6.2.0.56.10. I can feel it growing. Kyzar found growths between his fingers in the morning. When I saw him next he was in the infirmary with his hand gone— said it'd gotten caught in a chute door, but I could see him scratching it. It feels wrong._  
  
_0.68.6.3.0.67.21. I need to use this as an opportunity. The tests with the Voltan dune-runners are going well now that we've figured out that the crystal must be treated as a symbiote, not a parasite. If I can prove that it works in people as well, it could speed the project by tenfold._  
  
_-Crystal grows in your blood first. Pain inside. A little— nothing worth noting at first._  
_-You start to see it if you bleed. Then it shows in your sweat. Little glittery bits. It's almost beautiful. Then your blood starts to feel cold no matter what you do. That's less beautiful._  
_-It grows out of your skin. Nail beds, behind ears, corners of mouth, inner corners of eyes. It's such a lovely green color._  
_-Gwarnen the green? (needs work)_  
  
_0.74.7.3.0.87.43. Sickness in crystal killed Kyzar. We lost a good mind today._  
  
_0.99.9.4.0.99.71. Dune-runner experiments were a success. We have our first volunteer. Her name is Kallidra Sannus. Transfer from the Voltan Shields. Said she couldn't take the fighting anymore. She tried to talk to me. I don't talk with my test subjects. Implantation was a success. She's under monitoring._  
  
_-Spikes start to emerge from the soft bits in your skin. They're sharp at first, then they form plates— like scales, almost. Hard, but still flexible. The outsides start as scaling but then they turn to spurs, like armor built in to your body._  
_-Magic is so easy now. I can cast and summon as easily as I can breathe. With this power, I could topple Gramorr._  
_-I won't. The crystal has granted me wisdom as well as it has strength._  
  
_0.0.9.4.0.0.89. Sannus is doing well. Crystal is taking hold in her as it did me. She is red._  
  
_-Left arm is crystal now. Gramorr wasn't happy to hear, but he's allowed me to live. I am now a test subject. I don't mind. It is for the greater good of science and advancement._  
  
_7.96.44.16.87.2. Victory over rebels. Moving to Lotharin. Sannus was a success. Gramorr intends to turn more of his faithful Maginauts into crystal warriors. Project name: Crystalarium._  
  
_8.0.57.18.99.12. wrong wrong wrong wron g wr o ng w_  
  
The rest of the journal was blank. Iris didn't know what was worse: the slow lack of personal voice in the entries as time passes, or the green crystal dust between the pages of the book. It glittered in the light coming from the grate overhead as Iris turned the pages and suddenly the amount of crushed shards on the floor have a whole new meaning. Iris wanted to run away, or throw up— whichever came first. She tucked the journal in a pocket of her cloak. Talia would know what to make of it.  
  
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She wasn't alone.


	10. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 10: Lotharin Part 2

Something skittered— lots of somethings. Iris looked up from the journal just in time to see a… _thing_ … like a raptor about as tall as her hip, with glittery black crystal jutting from its joints at odd angles. It tilted its head at Iris and stared at her with beady eyes, filled with intelligence and a great deal of pain. It twitched one of its two legs, snapping its jaws involuntarily and showing off a mouth full of crooked teeth all jutting at odd angles from its jaw. It ground crystal dust onto the ground as it moved, that glittered in the light from the grate. The journal was right— the dust was beautiful, but Iris had a bad feeling about breathing too much of it in.  
  
"Easy," she whispered, holding up her hands and lowering herself to one knee. "I don't want to hurt you. I'm just visiting here."  
  
The creature hissed. More joined it. Were these the Voltan dune-runners the journal mentioned? Out of the corner of her eye, Iris noticed broken cages with twisted bars, as if blasted off by magic. Were those the dune-runner cages? They weren't much bigger than the creatures themselves. If they'd been in there for who-knew how long, no wonder they seemed angry.  
  
But Iris did a summer of dog training once— she knew, for the most part, how to deal with an angry animal. These weren't so scary now that she looked at them, and considering they weren't attacking her, it seemed more likely that they just wanted her out of their nest.  
  
"How long have you all been in here?" she asked, knowing she wouldn't get a verbal response. "It must be a… really long time. I don't know what the numbers in this book mean, but if it's a measure of time, then I guess… well, there's still no telling. Not that any of _you_ could tell me what it means."  
  
The creatures did not respond. More skittering from the corners of the library told Iris that more were coming to join the main group— soon she'd be backed against the wall with no way out. This wasn't good.  
  
The first creature lunged forward, its jaws wide and crackling with magic. The hair on the back of Iris's neck stood on end. Her shield went up. The creature collided with the wall of pink crystal and fell back, shaking the stars from its eyes.  
  
Its friends followed its lead. More collided with her shield. She moved it onto her arm and knocked the creatures aside, trying to run— more came. From every corner of the lab, they poured, their little clawed feet skittering unevenly on the shards and dust on the ground. They jumped, trying to push Iris over with their heads and rear feet, grasping at her armor with teeth and tiny, useless hands. One knocked her onto the ground and knocked the wind from her lungs. She gasped— if only she'd called for Izira's backup sooner— but there were so many, so many little claws and lungs and she had to shut tight her eyes and mouth to keep dust from getting in them— she was going to die, right here, at the claws and crystal of a hundred corrupted Voltan dune-runners.  
  
Somebody whistled. It couldn't be Izira. But the dune-runners looked up, alert, and at the second whistle, they left Iris alone. She coughed air back into her lungs and then coughed the dust back out, then finally could breathe again once she was standing up. She shook the crystal shards from her hair.  
  
A figure stood in the grated light, face shielded by a hood. Did everyone on Ephedia _really_ have the same cloak? Whoever it was was tall and somewhat lanky, like they hadn't grown into their hands and feet yet. They wore dark red, which stood out amidst the green and black of the lab, but very little armor that Iris could see. One gloved hand held a long, thin rapier made of razor-sharp crystal. Iris swallowed. The sword was dangerous-looking enough, but the fact that the dune-runners rallied to this figure's whistle made Iris's heart jump into her throat.  
  
Oddly enough, she looked familiar. Who did Iris know who wore red and fought with a rapier? Just in case it _was_ her, Iris raised her sword.  
  
The figure scoffed, which made every doubt about this figure's identity go out the window. Iris only knew one person who scoffed like that and it was Praxina. Iris clutched her sword tighter.  
  
"What are _you_ doing here?" Praxina demanded. She sneered at Iris from under her cloak, one eye, as always, covered with her hair. Her sword arm didn't move, but it looked ready to do so.  
  
"I could ask you the same question," Iris replied. "Where's Mephisto?"  
  
Praxina winced— it was only a little, and she tossed her hair in hopes Iris didn't catch on, but Iris did. "Oh, probably off somewhere, messing things up like he _always_ does without _me_ there to fix it." Iris could think of at least ten instances where _Praxina_ had been the one to mess up, but that was beside the point.  
  
"You mean you don't know," Iris summed up.  
  
Praxina scoffed again, which was as good as a yes. "I don't see how that's relevant to _you_. I'm not even here to fight you. You just _wish_ I was."  
  
"Actually, no," Iris shrugged. "I mean, as long as we're talking."  
  
Praxina narrowed her eyes. "Whatever," she decided. She turned, her rapier dissolving back into red crystal magic. "I'll need that book you have."  
  
"What makes you think I'll hand it over?" Iris demanded.  
  
"I asked nicely, didn't I?" Praxina retored.  
  
"No, _actually_ , you just said you need it," Iris replied. "Which isn't actually asking _or_ nice."  
  
Praxina snarled, forming her rapier again. "Then I _guess_ I'll have to—"  
  
Iris raised her blade in preparation, but Praxina stopped herself. The dune-runners at her command skittered, impatient.  
  
"I don't need that book anyway," Praxina scoffed. "It'd be a waste of my time to fight you for it. I'll find Mephisto _without_ —" she bit her lip and muttered a curse under her breath.  
  
"Wait—" Iris frowned. "Find Mephisto? You mean he's really _missing_ , not just-- somewhere else?"  
  
Praxina rolled her eyes. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked back at Iris very seriously, as if asking herself whether it was worth letting the Calixian snow ape out of the bag. Iris wasn't used to this. Usually when she and Praxina talked, it was exchanging pre-battle insults and taunts. Somehow Iris got the impression that she was worried about Mephisto— that this wasn't that he'd just gotten lost or something. Something was _very_ wrong.  
  
Praxina took a breath. "This does _not_ make us friends," she insisted. "I'm cooperating because I want to find my brother and get the dune-runners out of here, and our interests _happen_ to align— _not_ because I want to be a resistance fighter, or whatever."  
  
"Then let's cooperate," Iris replied. She put her sword away. "I'm here to take on the Sorcerer here and free the city. How does that connect to finding Mephisto? Unless—" The realization shot through her like a bolt of frozen lightning. "He's not— is he?"  
  
"That _thing_ is not my brother!" Praxina shouted, clenching her fists. "That's— that is a _monster!_ That is not a _person_ , and _definitely_ not Mephisto!" She clenched her teeth and made herself breathe.  
  
Iris was quiet. Praxina cursed in Ephedian and swallowed, looking back at Iris.  
  
"I've been going through the Crystalarium Project documents," she said. "You've read the Atticus notes, right? You know what they're trying to do."  
  
"It's… growing crystal in living things," Iris summed up. "The notes say that it makes you more intelligent as well as making you stronger."  
  
"They'll say it's a gift, but it's a corruption," Praxina said darkly. "It's a parasite. If it touches your blood, even by accident— then it's in you, and it'll feed on your magic until it can support itself. Then it turns you into a monster. It's a disease with the worst kind of outcome. I'm trying to figure out how to reverse the process and turn these dune-runners back to normal, but…"  
  
She trailed off. "It's too late for them," Iris guessed. "It's already grown into its own being."  
  
Praxina nodded. This was the first time Iris had ever seen her look sad, almost— or seen her feeling anything aside from smug superiority or shock at her defeat, again. She crouched and rubbed at the forehead scales on one of the dune-runners. It leaned on her like a giant cat. She glared at Iris as if saying _forget you know this about me as soon as we part ways,_ but the glare lacked her usual vitriol.  
  
Iris swallowed. "Do you think," she ventured. "Do you think the strength of the magic here is what's keeping the dune-runners from recovering?"  
  
"If it is, it's not like I can move them until you liberate the town," Praxina shrugged. "But that's what you're here to do."

Iris nodded. A thought occurred to her. "If you help us liberate the city, we'll help you find Mephisto," she said. "And then I'll convince Izira to have the Resistance help you move all the dune-runners to a better habitat."  
  
Praxina didn't seem convinced, but it was the best option, and she knew that. She glowered. "Fine," she decided. "We're allies. I doubt this'll last, so don't act like we're— _ugh_ — friends."  
  
"Wouldn't dream of it," Iris replied. Just then, someone on a tower hit a massive bell with a hammer, and Iris started to hear the synchronized footsteps and clanking armor that told her that their stealthy operation was compromised.  
  
Izira pushed the door open. "If you two are finished," she called into the lab, "We have to move, _now_."  
  
Iris didn't argue. She and Praxina bolted for the door Izira held open as a squad of guards crashed through the doors at the other end of the lab. Praxina whistled and the horde of dune-runners collided with the guards, snapping and snarling and generally causing mayhem. Izira slammed the door and sealed it— nobody was going to get through there without a chisel.  
  
"So glad to see you're making friends, Iris," Izira called as they ran through the halls.  
  
"We're _not_ friends," Praxina protested.  
  
"Whatever," Izira replied. "Up the stairs!"  
  
Iris took them two at a time. She slammed her shield into one of the guards coming onto a door near the landing. Bone crunched. She kept running.  
  
Izira stopped. She snatched one of the floating fireball lanterns out of the air and chucked it at the guards on the stairs ahead like a grenade. It shattered, spreading flame everywhere. One fell over the railing. The other retreated, screaming, his armor on fire. Izira shoved past him. Iris ducked under the embers flying through the air.  
  
Blood rushed in her ears. Izira pointed to the landing ahead, and the two giant doors in the center. What she shouted, Iris couldn't tell, but she thought she heard charge. She put up her shield and rammed into the group of guards with all the speed she could muster. They went down like bowling pins. The smarter ones ran— they did not see Iris, they saw an avatar of destruction with a pink crystal shield and ancestral Ephedian armor.  
  
Good riddance. Izira shoved at the doors— sealed, probably. She cursed. Praxina conjured walls of red crystal at the tops of the stairs to keep the guards at bay. Iris watched one try to smash through it like she'd just smashed through his buddies, to no avail. But the group of them chipped away at the crystal walls bit by bit. They didn't have a lot of time.  
  
"Stand back," Izira ordered. She pulled a flask out of her cloak and smashed it on the door's massive hinges. Something dark and sticky, moving like molasses, oozed from where the flask shattered. Then she rubbed her hands together and charged the goo with magic. Iris smelled something like burning hair for an instant, and then the doors blasted out of the frame. Iris and Praxina jumped to the sides, but Izira didn't even flinch. She smirked.  
  
The doors opened into to a steep, dark stairwell leading up. Light streamed from the top. Izira charged up the steps without a second thought, leaving Iris and Praxina to follow. It felt ominous— something in Iris's gut told her there was no turning back now, like the narration in a movie that told the heroes that things were getting more serious. Though it didn't exactly help because Iris already knew that, and it wasn't like she could go back to her last save point if things went bad.  
  
The first thing that Iris noticed was the crystal shards. They ground under her boots like they had in the library, making her unsteady on her feet. She clung to the wall to keep herself upright. Sunlight was a welcome sight, but she squinted in it as they climbed and it fell over her face. It looked like early afternoon, when the sun was at its hottest. But Iris didn't feel hot— the magic in her armor kept her cool, almost cold, except in her hands where she could feel the heat of magical energy building in her blood.  
  
Iris wasn't sure what she'd been expecting when she learned of the Sorcerer— even after learning of Project Crystalarium's effects, she would say she was expecting something at least vaguely personoid. And the Sorcerer _was_ vaguely personoid, in a sense— with a head and a trunk and two arms, all proportioned generally the right way. It had eyes in the right place on its head, and even if it was masked Iris could guess the general layout of what was underneath. It had no visible legs, instead hovering above the ground on billowing waves of crackling green energy. She could handle all of that.  
  
It wasn't even the crystal growth that threw her off. It grew out of the Sorcerer's helm and joints, crackling and breaking into shards as it moved, regrowing just as fast. Its arms were entirely composed of the stuff. The left had come detached entirely, and a writhing cord of energy kept it in place. The joint where it had once been seemed to fester, for lack of a better word, with crystal sparking and crackling and regrowing despite having nothing to latch on to. It looked painful, but something about the Sorcerer made Iris doubt it felt pain at all.  
  
What cemented the Sorcerer in Iris's mind as scary, upsetting, simply wrong on a visceral level, was the intelligence in those glowing green eyes. It looked as if it could look at Iris for a second and see her past, present, and every possible future. It did not blink. It almost seemed to be entertained by the unexpected visitors— as if it had known this was coming, and had prepared the area for this purpose. An arena made on the top of the keep, with spires made of dark crystal surrounding them in a perfect circle.  
  
Iris made the mistake of looking at the tops of the spires. There were people impaled on the tips— some dead, some still writhing, twitching, letting out strangled, bloody gasps as they felt the crystal spread through their soft insides. Iris tried very hard not to throw up right then and there.  
  
A wall of crystal covered the exit. So much for _that_ plan. The Sorcerer seemed to grin— except it didn't have a mouth, so perhaps Iris just felt the smugness roll off of it.  
  
_I'm impressed,_ it said. _You disposed of the masses with ease. I suppose I should expect that from Izira's magnificent Resistance._  
  
Izira drew her bow. "Your hold on this city has ended," she said, sounding far, far braver than Iris felt. "This time tomorrow, I'll be in Gramorr's throne room with your head in a bag, and he'll be next."  
  
_And how do you propose to defeat me?_ the Sorcerer said cooly, sounding exactly as haughty as Gramorr— except Gramorr actually spoke. _With one bow and a belt of parlor tricks? With a disgraced duelist turned apostate? With a fledgeling princess shaking in her boots? I think not._ Its voice turned to a snarl then— and it vibrated across the base of Iris's skull, transmitting the words through her bones and into her thoughts so seamlessly Iris couldn't be sure she wasn't imagining it all.  
  
"Enough talk," Izira decided. And then she vanished in a cloud of mist. Iris steeled her nerves and raised her shield. Praxina flicked her wrists and two slender blades appeared in her hands, elegant and deadly like the stingers of a wasp. The last time Iris saw those blades, their weilder had been trying to filet her like a salmon. They'd been oddly beautiful then, too.  
  
"Cover me," Praxina ordered. "I'm going in."  
  
She zipped forward, blades glinting red in the sunlight. Iris swallowed.  
  
She shouted something at the Sorcerer— insulting its mother, perhaps; she couldn't really tell. Whatever she shouted, it worked. Its off-hand, the one clinging to its body by a length of magic, warped into a massive spike. The Sorcerer hurled it into Iris. It smashed into her shield and knocked her back. Her shield destroyed, Iris skidded on the ground. _Great start,_ she thought. Now to do that another hundred times.  
  
The building shook. Iris got to one knee, watching in terrified awe as the Sorcerer held its arms out. The crystal limbs warped, for lack of a better word, sections snapping off and re-growing like bubbles in a boiling pot of water. The spires surrounding collapsed into piles of green shards, and the creatures they'd held fell to the ground. The Sorcerer snapped a finger and the creatures rose, shambling to their feet, as crystal shards flew towards them and dug into their skin. Whatever those things were, they had once been living. Now they were beings with magic buried so deep into their brains that everything they did, the Sorcerer could control with nary a thought— and he did, and pointed all of them to Iris.  
  
They weren't particularly clever, but they were fast and they were expendable and the Sorcerer, weaving itself around Izira's rain of arrows, summoned them in waves. Iris slashed through a group of them and ducked to avoid another blast from the hand of the Sorcerer itself. Praxina appeared by her side— or perhaps she'd been there the whole time— stabbing one of her blades through the skull of one of the horde. When it fell, she crushed the crystal in its skull under her boot. She made a face like she'd just stepped in something unpleasant.  
  
"I _hate_ unfair fights," Praxina grumbled. "You take point. I'll keep them off your back."  
  
"Don't take risks," Iris replied. "We'll need both of us alive if we're going to find Mephisto."  
  
Praxina gave her a look that Iris couldn't quite read— like she was rewriting her assessment of Iris's character. Iris could picture it: Where it once had said _sappy, soft-hearted, untrained, and far too reliant on instinct,_ now it said _sappy, soft-hearted, semi-trained, and too reliant on instinct, but a good meat shield._ How touching.  
  
Almost too fast to see, Praxina dashed to the side, skewering three of the mob with weapons poised to strike Iris at the back of the neck. She kicked them off her blade and smashed them to powder and pulp with a red crystal shield that dissolved as soon as it was done. "Pay attention," she snapped at Iris. Point taken, Iris nodded.  
  
The Sorcerer pulled another wave out of the building itself. The walls around the rooftop started to crumble, forming the misshapen crystal warriors that now stumbled mindlessly towards Iris and Praxina. Iris drew their attention with a shout, backing herself against the wall blocking the stairs back down. She smashed her shield into one of them and turned it into shards, and from there it went well.  
  
And then Iris heard Izira cry out in pain from somewhere above her. The Sorcerer's loose gauntlet slammed her to the ground hard enough to crack the stone ceiling. Her bow flew out of her hand and landed with a clatter far out of her reach. Iris shouted her name and lunged towards her, but Praxina grabbed her arm and held her back. Izira was moving, sort of, but it didn't look good from where Iris was standing.  
  
The Sorcerer swung its gauntlet across the arena, knocking Iris to the ground and Praxina into the side of another tower. Iris held up a shield an instant before the gauntlet slammed into her from above. It shattered the shield but landed with a crash in the floor. Iris felt cracks spread through the stone under her. Her stomach lurched.  
  
_I was told you are the Heir of Ephedia,_ the Sorcerer rumbled. It gave half of a chuckle. _And here all I see is a little girl playing soldier in her father's armor, thinking that mommy is going to call her back inside and bandage her skinned knees when it gets too dark to play outside._ And then it laughed.  
  
Iris's face burned with a mixture of anger and shame. She tried to pull herself up again, but something shoved her back, knocking the wind from her lungs when her back hit the wall. She struggled to inhale. The Sorcerer growled, its words burning with cruelty and hatred. Iris would ordinarily be the first to give the benefit of the doubt, but there was no room for reaching out now. She couldn't reason with something that saw her as a mosquito to be squashed, or perhaps a pretty butterfly to pin to the backboard of a box and admire with smug superiority.  
  
But the Sorcerer did not look like it was doing well. One of Izira's pitch grenades had soaked its side in sticky black tar. It was shedding and regrowing crystal more rapidly now, and almost seemed to be shaking with the effort. But it thought, with Izira down, it had the upper hand. If it had a mouth, it would grin.  
  
_One day, none of this will be real anymore,_ the Sorcerer continued. _And the world will finally be at peace. Unfortunately, you will not live to see any of it. Soon it will be getting dark for you, and you will not be able to play— but it will be because breath will be slipping from your lungs and the crystal will make itself a garden in your bones. Your mother will not be there to call you inside and tuck you into bed, little princess. You will live and die alone, just like every other pathetic little creature in this flawed, broken little world._  
  
The Sorcerer raised its gauntlet again. _You will make a lovely Crystalarium,_ it said. _I do hope you enjoy your new fate._  
  
Iris felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. She scrambled to her knees and rolled to the side an instant before the gauntlet slammed into the stone. This was bad— understatement of the century. Some condescending monster kept alive by magic and corruption wanted her dead, and more than likely, so did Gramorr. Izira and Praxina could very well _be_ dead. She was running on adrenaline and stretched tighter than a rubber band trying to moor an ocean liner, had a single sword and whatever combat spells she knew at her disposal, and something decidedly unhelpful in the back of her mind was running through her last will and testament. She was going to _die_ up here and all the people she left behind on Earth— Aunt Ellen, Nathaniel, her human friends— would just have to wonder. And they'd wonder and they'd wonder and move on with their lives, and eventually she'd disappear from their wonderings entirely. She'd be a face on a milk carton or the side of a telephone pole until everyone forgot about her, and then those last remnants of what she was would rot inside trash bags and dumpsters as the rest of the world moved on. She was going to be one of a million kids that vanished and nobody would care once her fifteen minutes were up.  
  
She breathed heavily, waiting for the final blow. And as the gauntlet came down, aiming to flatten her into paste, something about the air changed.  
  
Maybe it was the crystal dust, but her next breath was deep. Clarity flowed through her lungs and into her blood, and even though her arms and legs burned with exertion, they no longer felt too heavy to move. Time slowed.  
  
Iris clutched the hilt of her sword. She set a hand on the ground. Magic pulsed through the stone of the building, running in veins of pure energy far too small for the eye to see that seemed to run everywhere in Ephedia; magic that flowed freely as water through every surface, woven into the air and sky itself. It thrummed with her heartbeat in Iris's very blood, crackling like lightning through the air in arcs off Iris's glowing golden armor. Izira had told her that this was her birthright and she'd doubted before, but now she not only believed it, she _felt_ it— the blood of kings and queens for hundreds, _thousands_ of years reverberating in her very bones. She was _born_ to fight— no. She was born to _win_.  
  
In one movement, she stood. She faced the gauntlet six inches from her head and knocked it aside with her hand, sending it into a tower. She took a step forward— the Sorcerer looked shocked, if one with a mask for a face could look shocked. Her footsteps echoed through the stone. She walked with the weight of an army, raw power pouring from her in waves. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Praxina pull herself from the ground, clenching her fists, biting her lip, as the wave of rejuvinating energy rolled through the arena. Izira, even, grit her teeth and held out her hand for her bow to fly into once more, where it belonged. There was blood dripping from somewhere above her hairline and one eye was swollen shut. Her shoulder was a bruised, swelling mess. Her breathing was labored. But she was alive.  
  
"My fate is _not_ for you to decide, monster," Iris said, sounding both earth-shakingly furious and impossibly calm. "If I'm dying, it isn't today."  
  
She charged.

* * *

  
  
The next thing Iris knew, she was on the ground. It was hot under her armor, but she shivered, like her blood had suddenly turned to ice. It felt like she'd just burned herself out in the Arena trying to perfect one of Talia's particularly aggressive drills, except times ten. Her first thought was that's what had happened— except then she remembered Amaru was hibernating until spring, so that couldn't be possible. Her head was on something soft— somebody's leg, maybe. For a second she wondered if she was dead. Then her head started pounding and her muscles started screaming and she tasted blood in her mouth, and decided that she probably wasn't dead.  
  
Someone shouted something that she couldn't hear through the ringing in her head. She closed her eyes tighter, trying to block out the ever-growing brightness in front of her eyelids, and sucked in a breath that hurt her chest when she tried. Her jaw trembled as she shivered. But breathing was important, so she tried again and coughed air back into her lungs. The ringing receeded. Someone was definitely shouting, and shaking her shoulder, and as the pieces came back together Iris determined it was Praxina.  
  
Carefully, she opened one eye. Praxina was glaring at her, but her lip was full of bite marks that told Iris she'd been chewing on it, and her eyes were puffy but she didn't even seem to care. There were green crystal shards in her hair and blood from her bruised nose was crusting on her upper lip.  
  
"You _do_ care," Iris croaked, cracking a smile. Praxina made a disgusted noise and dropped Iris on the stone. Her head throbbed when it hit with a heavy thunk. Iris couldn't make her smile fade.  
  
"She's fine," Praxina grumbled. Iris, blinking at the sky and the spires heading towards it, couldn't see who Praxina was talking to, but it was probably Izira. That's right, they'd fought a battle together. Iris tried to push herself onto her elbows, but Izira's hand on her shoulder held her back.  
  
"Don't try to get up all at once," Izira said, her voice mushy from her split lip.  
  
"You're okay," Iris croaked, her voice cracking with relief. Izira was okay— wounded and sweaty from the battle, but _alive_ , and that was the most important part.  
  
"Thanks to you," Izira replied, helping her sit up. Iris's head swam with vertigo, but it faded in a second with the ringing in her ears. "We were nearly defeated. If your Second Wind hadn't kicked in, we'd all be dead."  
  
"Oh," was all Iris could say. "But— but we won?"  
  
"We won," Izira repeated. She was smiling widely, even with the blood staining her hair and dribbling down the side of her head. "Your first battlefield victory. How do you feel, your Highness?"  
  
Iris thought about that. "I want to go home," she decided. "I'm cold and everything hurts."  
  
"That can be arranged," Izira promised. "I've signaled the Resistance. Once we're back at camp and recovered, then we can see about sending you home."  
  
"Good," Iris said. "I don't think I like being a soldier."  
  
"That's for the best," Izira told her. And then Izira hauled her to her feet, an arm over her shoulders, and they trudged back down the stairs through the crowds of awe-struck Maginaut guards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun times


	11. Act 1: For Ephedia- Chapter 11: In the Spirits of Victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is 4:15 am as i write this note and i hope yall are happy. chapter 12 to come in like, a few minutes probably as soon as i polish it

There was celebration in the days afterwards, of course. Even if Gramorr was far from defeated, taking Lotharin and the Basin were significant blows against his empire. Starmum Basin in particular was strategically advantageous if they were to use it as their base, especially because there was an entrance to Ephedia's massive subterranean system of tunnels and caverns just under the basement forge. Lotharin was useful for its connection to the Imperial Highway and its good location, but the Basin's advantage of an entrance to the caverns put it at a higher priority.  
  
As far as Talia knew, Izira was heavily considering both— but she could only pick one, as splitting the Resistance to occupy both locations was a _terrible_ idea. And at least she _had_ been considering, before her general broke open the casks and strategy was put aside in favor of celebration. Talia would've been the first to suggest maybe not going overboard, but considering that Izira had taken at least two delibitating injuries and lived to tell the tale, she could have all the weird Ephedian lichen-ale she wanted.  
  
She could've joined in if she wanted, but Izira wouldn't let her have more than one mug, and Talia was never one to celebrate when there was still work to be done. She wasn't on patrol officially, but another pair of eyes wouldn't hurt, and she had a habit of doing rounds around Aunt Ellen's house once the sun set anyway. Paranoid and unnecessary, perhaps, but it helped put her mind at ease.  
  
Izira caught her as she was doing the rounds. Talia would admit she wasn't sure how to feel about that— she's relieved beyond words that Izira is alive and she hasn't lost the only family she has after all, but she hasn't seen Izira in nine years and something about her seems… _different_.  
  
But now Izira slung her arm over Talia's shoulders. Her mug of lichen-ale slopped over the sides, which would be a waste if they didn't have another several barrels. "Doing the rounds, are we?" she said. "So vigilant."

"Somebody has to, while the rest of the army is… _celebrating_ ," Talia shrugged. 'Celebrating' was the operative word— she assumed that Izira's general was shouting about how _today is a good day to die_ and headbutting everyone who would comply because of the celebration and not because General Adaia was just naturally like that. Sometimes Talia wondered if Carissa was just odd for a Calite and then she saw the general, a shining example of the country's best and brightest, and decided that if anything, Carissa was _subtler_ than most.  
  
"You ought to let yourself rest a little," Izira decided. "Pet something fuzzy. Take a hot bath. Some Talia-time, y'know?"  
  
She smelled like lichen. "You're drunk," Talia said, pushing Izira's arm off. "I can handle myself, Izira. Besides, I figured it'd be a good idea to take a walk anyway. Get some fresh air in my lungs while we're still soaking in victory."  
  
"Now that's a good thought," Izira hummed. "Soaking in Victory. That's this stuff's name. Brewed in underground springs under the Calixian peaks. It's older than a Boralian deepfisher's chest hair." Talia doubted that, chiefly because Boralean deepfishers were fish and fish generally didn't have hair.  
  
"I'm sure that would cause some kind of infection," Talia said pragmatically. Izira aimed to give her a friendly slug on the shoulder, which would ordinarily sting a bit, but she was either too steeped in Victory to have enough control to do that or she purposefully only hit as hard as a light tap, and because it was Izira Talia didn't know which was more likely.  
  
"You get my point," Izira replied. "When you're of age and I'm retired, we'll have a _real_ celebration, just because it's still up in the air whether we'll live that long." Which was a remarkably sobering thought coming from a drunk woman. Though she was still coherent, so maybe she wasn't as drunk as Talia thought.  
  
"It'll be fine," Talia said, more to herself, sounding uncertain even to her own ears. "We did deal a serious blow to Gramorr's operation. Perhaps our reputation and influence will spread."  
  
Izira took a thoughtful sip from her mug. She folded her arms. Grayish liquid slopped out of the mug and dribbled down the side. It was thicker than most drinks, not quite gloppy and definitely not as thin as water, but somehow still transparent. Chunks of lichen-paste sparkling with miniscule specks of crystal dust clung to the inner sides of the mug like barnacles. When it dropped to the ground and came into contact with the natural magic in the dirt, it briefly arced with weak lightning before lying dormant.  
  
"With luck," Izira admitted. " _Meantime_ , though. When were you gonna tell me about your thing for Auriana?"  
  
Had Talia been drinking, she would've choked on it. As it was, she flushed to the tips of her ears. "Wh-what _thing?"_ she stammered. "I don't— I don't have a _thing_ for Auriana! She's just— we're just battle partners, I swear!"  
  
Izira smirked. She looked exactly as smug and all-knowing as she did when she was sixteen, and Talia hated that smirk just as much as she did when she was seven.  
  
For a moment Talia thought she was about to tease. But then Izira mussed her hair and smiled. "Love is weird," she said. "You know, there was this thing back home about how the only love Xerans know is for their jobs." Which sounded about right to Talia.  
  
"Isn't that the way it's done?" Talia asked. "I mean I don't remember, really, but—"  
  
"These things don't change that much from country to country," Izira shrugged. "Sure, maybe we didn't talk about it, didn't make a big deal of it, but Xerans loved just as much as anyone else. Love happens wherever you are, whether you want it to or not. S'like life that way."  
  
For no reason that Talia could discern, it made her feel marginally better. Izira patted her shoulder and downed the rest of her mug. Talia stared at the gravel path in front of her.  
  
"I'm headed back for more Victory," Izira decided. "Don't work too hard, alright?"  
  
"Alright," Talia promised. "Thanks, Izira." Even if the talk hadn't been a lot of help, it gave her something to think about.

* * *

  
  
The Resistance's library was best described as a dozen or so crates of books and research supplies, that had once all been catalogued but were no longer. The library had made its home under the shelter of what had been a dire boar's den and in fact led down to the caves. Perhaps the caves were what killed the dire boar— but whatever the reason for the den's vacancy, it made a good spot for the library.  
  
Talia spent a lot of her time there, but due to recent events, the library was usually where Praxina could be found. Izira had people watching her in case she made to take advantage of the Resistance's hospitality, but so far all she'd done is read and reread the journal Iris had found in Lotharin, flipping through texts in the Resistance library and scratching down notes in her notebook.  
  
Her handwriting was atrocious. Talia caught a glimpse of her journal when she lingered at the mouth of the den. Praxina glowered and snapped it shut.  
  
"What do _you_ want?" she demanded, holding the notebook against her chest.  
  
Talia held up her hands. "I was in the area. I'm not here for an interrogation."  
  
Praxina still glowered, but her shoulders relaxed a bit— just a bit. Talia understood her hostility. She was, after all, technically a prisoner. "Right. Well. I suppose your _illustrious_ leader still doesn't trust me."  
  
"If we're being honest, neither do I," Talia admitted. "Considering you've tried to kill me in the past."  
  
Praxina grumbled admittance. "Your friend _Iris_ seems to be under the impression that I care one way or another about the three of you. I just think everyone would be a lot better off if I had the power to rule the people of Ephedia. If everybody listened to _me_ , there would be no problems."  
  
"Because that's not ominous at all," Talia commented. Praxina scowled.  
  
" _I_ would do it well," she insisted. "Better than _Gramorr_ , anyway. He's all about conquering Ephedia, but what for? To fill his trophy case? To get back at his old college classmates? It's all selfish gain for selfish reasons. _He's_ too busy stroking his own _god complex_ to know what to do with the crown if he gets it."  
  
"And _you_ know better?" Talia raised an eyebrow. "You _know_ the crown belongs to the royal family of Ephedia."  
  
"Says you," Praxina replied. "Crowns and things ought to belong to the people who know the best thing to do with them. If that happens to be the Queen, or even if it happens to be Iris, then I'll gladly let _them_ take it. But I still think _I_ could do best with it."  
  
It made sense, in a very Praxina way. Talia wasn't sure how that sat with her, since it's always been her primary goal to see the crown returned to its rightful owner of Queen Viridi, and then eventually to Iris.  
  
Talia decided to change the subject. "I'm told you're trying to find a way to reverse Gramorr's Crystalarium Project," she said. "Any leads?"  
  
"I don't see how that's any of _your_ business," Praxina snipped, but she sounded too tired to summon any real ire. It'd been a long few days, at least for her. "I'm not part of your merry little band of misfit princesses. What do _you_ care?"  
  
"You may not want to be friends," Talia began. "But the Resistance promised to aid you in your project provided it doesn't harm us. Regardless of what we'll be when this is over, we're allies now. Doesn't that mean _anything_ to you?"  
  
Praxina considered this. She took her notebook and flipped through it again, then stared hard at the words on the page. (How she could read them at all was her business.)  
  
"I found a lead," she said, more quietly. "On the project, and on where Mephisto may be."

Now that was news. "Is it within the reach of the Resistance?" she asked. "Shouldn't you tell Izira?"  
  
Praxina snorted. "I doubt I can tell _Izira_ until she's through nursing that hangover." Which was entirely fair. "Our _family_ —" she made a face— "Has an old fortress not far from Astaria City. I think that might be where he'd gone. He always _was_ obsessed with the family glory, and relics that used to be connected to our name. It's a ruin now, but that may be where he's hiding."  
  
"Does Gramorr know about it?" Talia asked. Praxina shrugged, but the dark look in her eyes told Talia that wasn't the whole story. She decided not to pry.  
  
Praxina pulled a stolen map out of a pocket. "Here," she said, pointing. "Fort Hayder."  
  
Talia has heard of Fort Hayder. When she was living in Astaria City, the local children would dare each other to sneak in past its ruined gates, the ones with black crystal climbing the walls like ivy. Nobody was brave enough because they said there were ghosts— even though there were no ghosts.  
  
"I hear Fort Hayder is haunted," Auriana says, out of seemingly nowhere— has she been there the whole time? "By the spirits of a former landowner who was overthrown by his staff for a heinous crime, and his entire lineage was thrown into disgrace after that. How weird!"  
  
Praxina gave her a look. "Yeah, weird," she said. "The man that owned the fort was our great-grandfather or whatever, and Mephisto is obsessed with proving he was falsely accused. With Gramorr focusing his attention on the project, Mephisto must've taken off to chase that goal like I took off to chase mine. I doubt Gramorr's even noticed we're gone." She said the last bit with a hint of resigned bitterness.  
  
"When did you get here?" Talia asked, frowning. "I thought you were swapping hunting stories with Carissa."  
  
"She and Lyna started getting all PDA, so I excused myself," Auriana shrugged. She made a face. "I think the spirits of Victory were getting to them. Not being dead really brings out the liveliest in people."  
  
No wonder she left. "And Iris?" Talia asked. "Is she doing better?"  
  
"She's out cold," Auriana reported. "Stable, though. Ademar said that she'll be fine after her magic recovers in a week. The first Second Wind is always the hardest."  
  
Talia made a sympathetic noise. "It's probably best she's sleeping through the festivity," she commented. "So you came when you heard—"  
  
"The muttering about Fort Hayder," Auriana nodded. "I've never been but I've heard about it— one of my classmates was from the area. She got all the way to almost touching the gates before chickening out."  
  
Praxina cleared her throat. She tucked the map back into her pocket and took her satchel of the books she'd chosen to scour. "That's all well and good, but I have an idiot brother to find, so."  
  
"Right, what are we waiting for?" Auriana decided, jumping to her feet. "We'll go too. We're your backup."  
  
"I don't _need_ backup," Praxina protested. "You'll just slow me down. Mephisto might be in danger."  
  
Talia hesitated. Praxina was a highly skilled fighter, yes, which was all the more reason it'd be better for the Resistance to have her on their side.  
  
"You go ahead and we'll meet you there," Talia compromised. "If you need backup, we'll be in before it gets too bad."  
  
This seemed like a reasonable arrangement. "Fine," Praxina grumbled. " _Fine_. But keep up."  
  
And that was a fair expectation, so Talia did not argue. Fort Hayder wasn't far— it was just outside the western boundary of Astaria City, down a short path over a stream that'd be idylic in the daytime, were it not for the looming darkness of the fort itself. Whoever had designed it had built it low and all of stone, but with towers on both sides with narrow windows for archers. A benign sight on its own, all made of rock with green crystal glittering in the cracks, but dark crystal had reclaimed the towers of the keep and glinted wickedly in the light of the moons. The gates were sculpted iron and had likely once held gems for decoration, but the gems had long since been stolen. Talia could see why people thought it was haunted, but it definitely wasn't. She'd know it if it was.  
  
Praxina entered the fort alone. It could've been a mistake, but she'd insisted that she didn't want anybody else venturing into the old place. Talia thought it more likely that she wanted to conspire with Mephisto alone, should she find him, but that was mostly because she didn't trust Praxina. Even _Iris_ didn't trust her completely, as was understandable, and Talia had been at the business end of those rapiers one too many times to feel at ease with Praxina.  
  
Auriana had picked up a small, flat rock. She was tossing it to herself as she leaned on the black crystal reclaiming the iron gates. Sometimes she gave it a spin and snatched it out of the air. Other times she bounced it between her hands before tossing it back into the air. Sometimes it spiraled in the air and nearly hit her head, but she caught it before it could. It was flawless in execution— Talia had found that Auriana never gave herself enough credit for the things she could do that _weren't_ fighting.  
  
But Talia wasn't going to pretend there wasn't a big-ass elephant in the room. She fidgeted with her bracelet, idly twisting one of the decorations that'd come a bit loose. Auriana was energized from the win but Talia was under no illusions their personal relationship hadn't changed— something Talia had learned from being on Earth was that you could fight next to somebody for years and trust them with your life, and still not know what to do when something squishy and pink started growing whenever you thought about them. Iris called it butterflies in your stomach. Talia called it a load of bullshit.  
  
"I don't think I've thanked you personally yet," she said without thinking, which was a first for Talia. She immediately regretted it and her face flushed in response. "For the battle, I mean. Not because I _wanted_ us to go to a battle, or because the battle was _your_ doing, because I don't and it wasn't, I'm—" screwing this up. Talia clamped her mouth shut. _Use your words, Talia,_ she scolded herself. _You're nearly an adult. Act like it._  
  
Auriana shrugged. "Don't mention it," she said, all too lightly. "We're partners, right?"  
  
"Well, yes—" Talia cleared her throat. "I mean, yes, of course we are. But it's— I just— I wanted to let you know that I like having you near me, if, um— if that sounds right. Not in a weird way like I like staring at your butt or something gross and weird like that, but— _klatznik_." Ordinarily she could express what she was trying to say without bringing profanity into the mix, but sometimes it was needed.  
  
Auriana didn't seem to know how to respond to that. She caught the rock in her hand but didn't throw it again, and instead rubbed her thumb over the surface thoughtfully. "I don't _mind_ if you like staring at my butt," she said. "It's pretty great, I agree."  
  
That was what she chose to respond to? Talia flushed. "I don't—"  
  
"So you _don't_ like looking at my butt?" Auriana teased.  
  
"No, that's not it," Talia stammered. "Yes, okay, fine, I like looking at your butt, but I also like looking at the rest of you, and also I like the rest of you being next to me because— because I know we'll both be safest if we're close, and knowing you're there makes everything feel a lot more— a lot more _okay_ than I ever thought it would. It's— I feel safest when I'm around you. And I really appreciate that, and don't say so enough, so— thank you. For being my partner. For being my shield."  
  
Auriana almost smiled at that— almost. It was too tired to be more than an echo of the smile that Talia knew, the one that warmed the air around her by several degrees like the sunshine that bore down constantly on the Voltan cliffs and valleys. The same smile that told Talia that they were safe as long as they stuck together, that nothing would come bursting through the doors to take her like it'd taken her parents and her sister and her country. And if something did that was the smile that told her they'd beat it together, because together they were stronger than it could ever be. Talia wondered how long Auriana had become synonymous with safety and home for her.  
  
Talia missed her smile.  
  
Auriana gave her a salute. "Just doing my job," she said. Then her small smile widened into something realer, and Talia felt something warm stir in her chest. "Much as I like having downtime on Earth, and things like conditioner and smoothies and mattresses are nice, I _did_ miss going into battle together."  
  
"Nothing like slicing through waves of enemies to set the mood for a date," Talia muttered. Auriana laughed, just a bit— it was something.  
  
"You should do that more often," she suggested. "Make jokes."  
  
"I would hardly call what I do jokes," Talia admitted. "More like dry wit."  
  
"Whatever it is, it suits you," Auriana decided. "Even if not everybody gets it."  
  
"What's the point in trying to be funny if not everyone gets it?" Talia frowned. "If nobody gets it then it's not funny anymore because you have to explain it."  
  
"I wouldn't worry too much about that," Auriana shrugged. "I mean, who _cares_ about people not getting it? I say if they can't pick up on your dry wit, forget them. That's what _I_ think, anyway." (Was that too much? Auriana's cheeks flushed, just a little, but she tossed her hair over her shoulder and played it cool. Luckily Talia did not comment on this.)  
  
Talia cracked a smile. "You're sweet," she said. "But— but seriously. I— can I just say first that I have _no_ idea what I'm doing, and it's probably luck alone that I'm even making words happen at _all_ , and feelings are harder than Earthling pop songs make them sound? Because I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm lucky anything I'm saying is an actual word and feelings are stupidly hard and I don't like them, at all. But I can admit that they're important and if having feelings means I can maybe be with you for longer than I would if I were an emotionless robot, then I'll take all the feelings that exist and all the ones that don't, _twice_." She said all of that in one breath, and inhaled deeply when she was done. But that wasn't the end of it.  
  
She forced herself to look Auriana square in the face even though everything in her was screaming at her to run and hide. She took a breath. Then another. Then another, and held it so long she was fairly sure she was turning blue. (Maybe if she passed out she wouldn't have to do this now.)  
  
Auriana looked concerned. This wasn't going well. Talia muttered a string of curses in Ephedian that, had Izira been around to hear them, would've shocked her and probably grounded Talia even though she had never had the authority to do so and there was nowhere to which to ground her because they were in an army camp on the outskirts of a city and she needed Talia on the battlefield anyway because Talia hadn't trained all those years for nothing.  
  
"Um, anyway," Talia managed. "I'd gladly embrace every feeling for you no matter how much of an inconvenience I find them in general because when I'm with you it feels like they're not as complicated and they won't kill me if I face them. You make me far stronger than I could be on my own and I think that I'm a far better person for knowing you." She swallowed. Now for the toughest part. "I care for you, a lot, and that hasn't shown in my actions towards you as of late. I let myself get caught up in everything being perfect because I was sure that's what you deserve, and I didn't realize what I was doing would hurt you like it did. That was wrong of me, and I'm not asking forgiveness, but— but should you decide you forgive me, I'd— I'd like us to be friends again. Iris was right. We can't be Lolirock if we're dancing around one another like strangers."  
  
Talia had a point— Talia often had a point but this was a particularly good one. Auriana's fingers spun her ring idly, the five tiny gemstones catching and glinting in the moonlight. Talia swallowed. She kind of felt like throwing up.  
  
Auriana hesitated. She had long since dropped the rock back to the ground. So far Praxina didn't seem to be having any trouble inside of Fort Hayder, which was a good sign because she and Talia were kind of having a moment. Back at camp they were probably packing up the Victory so they wouldn't run out before the end of the night— though if it was flowing freely enough, Izira's army might just drain the casks. Iris was still recovering from her Second Wind in the infirmary and probably wouldn't be able to fight with her magic for the next week or so. Life went on while seconds between them ticked by.  
  
The stars were out. Five of Ephedia's seven moons were visible in the sky, the largest one looming on the horizon and glowing with a pale shade of blue. Under the violet expanse of nighttime Talia fidgeted with her bracelet with hands so shaky they were sure to snap off that loose curl of decorative metal if she kept at it. It had seemed so much easier in her head— which was saying something, because Talia's head tended to fabricate the worst possible outcomes for her actions and play them on repeat until something new took its place. The hesitation somehow felt worse than Talia's worst-case scenarios of being laughed at, or scorned, or told that she could never love anybody anyway because what did _she_ know about love? Possibly because those outcomes were ridiculous and Auriana would never, _ever_ say things so cruel. This was different. This was thinking, wondering how to say what she needed to say without hurting Talia in the process. (Auriana said many things without thinking sometimes, but this was not one of those times.)  
  
"Why me?" Auriana finally asked. She finally looked at Talia, brows furrowed together. Then she realized she'd forgotten to say the rest of her bit. "I mean— of _course_ I forgive you! It was unfair of me to accuse you of being ashamed of me when you've never indicated anything like that, and bringing up that you didn't tell me about Xeris or about your sister wasn't fair because I know you're a much more private person than I am when it comes to this sort of thing."  
  
"Of course I'm glad to know you, too," she continued. "All that time we spent together scouring every inch of this stupid planet for something we'd never even seen— I wouldn't trade it for the world. You've shown me there's more to life than crumbled countries and soldiery." And at that she laughed hollowly. "I could never regret knowing you, Talia. But there's something in me that I don't know what it's about, maybe it's just scared and I let it get too big, but I keep thinking— what do I do for you that nobody else can? Why did you pick me?"  
  
And now it's out in the open. Auriana felt something cold clench in the pit of her stomach. Here was Talia's chance to say _the Council made me_ or _your instructor suggested you from the list of volunteers because of your aptitude scores_ or _I thought you looked so pathetic among the rest of the volunteers that I couldn't just leave you there_ or _I don't know, really, I just needed some muscle for the journey._ Auriana wasn't sure what she'd do if she said any of that. She'd probably die— crawl into a hole and die, right then and there, of mortification for even thinking Talia saw her as anything special.  
  
"I needed somebody with a Shield's talents," Talia admitted. "And considering word of the quest had reached the Academy, the Council suggested—"  
  
"But why me?" Auriana repeated. "What do I have that every other kid there didn't?"

"You just— _were?"_ Talia fumbled. Her throat hurt. "I don't know, I don't—"  
  
"There were _tons_ of Shields!" Auriana finally exploded like a volcano blowing its top after holding it in for too long; she was all fire and smoke and lava and getting too close would burn. There were tears on her cheeks that felt like hot magma but they did not cool into rock as they rolled down her cheek, only plunked onto her armor and left little wet trails where they were. Her foot stomped in the dirt and she was closer to Talia then,  
  
"I know," Talia said, voice hoarse-- she tried again, louder, firmer, more like Izira. "I _know_ there were! Many qualified soldiers that would've been glad to help search for Ephedia's lost princess! But I picked you out of all of them, and you know why?"  
  
Auriana tried to shake her head but Talia took her arms and lowered her head to make Auriana look her in the eye.  
  
Talia swallowed. "Of all those shields," she began, praying she did not sound as desperate as she felt, "Of all those shields, yours shone the brightest-- just like its bearer. I could ask for no finer partner than you, Auriana. If only I'd been able to get the words out sooner."

Talia had said that she cares before. She'd said that Auriana was very good at what she did and that she was a great friend to have. But somehow all of that hadn't felt real until this moment under the vast Ephedian sky, with the two of them and the forest and Fort Hayder looming in the background. It was then something in every fiber of Auriana's being said _she does care_ and it was then that Auriana was sure she'd be able to fly if she tried.  
  
"Oh, who _cares_ about words?" Auriana scoffed, but she was grinning. In one movement she wrapped her arms around Talia and squeezed, making up for lost time wasted pining and side-stepping and self-doubting. "I don't care about _words_ , Talia. I care about _you_."  
  
"Oh," Talia whispered. "Oh!"  
  
"Yeah!" Auriana agreed. "Talia, I don't _need_ perfect. I don't _want_ perfect. All I want is you, and everything that comes along with it. There's no one else I'd rather have as my blade."  
  
Talia did not do this very often, but she returned the hug then— Auriana's hair still smelled like green apples like it did when they'd kissed the first time. Talia's stomach fluttered with something stupid and squishy and pink but she thought that maybe now it wouldn't be so bad.  
  
And there were no more words that needed to be said.  
  
As luck would have it, that was when Praxina cleared her throat. Talia jumped, reflexively clinging to Auriana with one hand and going for her wand with the other, but the reflex faded as quickly as it came.  
  
Praxina huffed out a short sigh. "Hate to interrupt the _moment_ ," she snipped. "But we're done at the fort. I found a few things that may help scattered around in the study."  
  
"Did you find Mephisto?" Auriana asked.  
  
"Oh, him too," Praxina added. "He's—"  
  
"Hello!" Mephisto said gleefully— far too gleefully for someone with twigs in his hair and bags under his eyes like he's been holed up in an abandoned fort for a month. "Small world, right? Prax filled me in. We're working together now, huh? Weird how these things change so easily."  
  
Talk about a moment killer. Talia cleared her throat, reluctantly detaching herself from Auriana. "We'll have to talk this over with Izira," she said. "I suppose you're both technically prisoners of the Resistance now. If she's not still imbibing in the waters of Victory, that is." Talia mumbled the last part. She wouldn't be surprised if the celebration had stopped by now, but she also wouldn't be surprised if it didn't stop until dawn.  
  
"At this point I'd defect to your cause," Mephisto admitted. "If we're being honest, Gramorr's not that great of a boss. We don't even have dental, and also Banes nearly took my arm off once or twice or six times, I can't remember. Is there food?"  
  
"If there's not, I'll find some," Praxina decided. "Don't go swearing your loyalty to them when there's still work to be done. Let's go." And she grabbed his elbow and towed him back in the direction of the camp, leaving Talia and Auriana to walk behind and Talia to wonder how she was going to explain all of this to Izira.


	12. Intermission: Notes from Ephedia

_Everybody tells me that I should be myself because nobody is better at being me than me. I know that nobody can be a better Iris than I can be. That would be scary— I can't imagine more than one me running around, making lamps explode and stuff! If there is another me, would she have weird voice powers too? I hope not._  
  
_Maybe the reason I'm weird is because I have a ghost around me that doesn't want me to sing, so she breaks things. But I like singing! Maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was. Maybe the ghost is a talent scout like the kind Joanna's choir teacher tells her to watch out for and I am just not talented enough to be okay. :(_  
  
_I don't sing anymore. Singing makes me happy so I'm supposed to do it when I'm happy, but then bad things happen and it makes people upset, so that makes me upset. So which is it? Argh!_  
  
_I wish I could sing, but I don't think I should. Aunt Ellen told me that I should always try to be a good and kind person, and I don't think that involves breaking things if I try to sing. Nathaniel says I have a pretty voice, but I think he is just saying that because he is a pretty person and everything is pretty to pretty people. I don't know what type of person I am. But I am only eleven and a half and I think I have some time left over to figure that out, probably._  
  
_What if I'm the reason my singing makes weird things happen? Is it a curse? Doug was telling me that all kinds of scary ghosts and stuff can be real since people tell stories about them and they're in all those emails and things and the scary stories that he sends me about haunted video games and Bigfoot and stuff. I do think ghosts are real because I can't explain the weird stuff that I do otherwise, but I've never seen a bigfoot so I don't think they are real. Aliens are, though, definitely, because Dr. Emmerson down the street says so and he is a doctor of philosophy so he must know things._  
  
_If I am cursed, it's definitely better I don't sing. I don't want anybody to be hurt. But what if that means I can never sing again?_  
  
_I don't want anybody to be hurt._

[Early entry from Iris's journal. The rest of the page is covered in doodles of flowers, music notes, and triangular creatures that are probably supposed to be foxes.]

* * *

  
  
_No sign. Recruited a Voltan Shield at council's insistence. >:|_  
  
_No sign. Shield cried at a Calixian snow ape cub._  
  
_No sign. Shield insists I call her Auriana. Will not. We are not friends._  
  
_No sign. Battled Gramorr's mercenaries. Shield is good in combat; not as much of a dead weight as initially thought. Still shudders at thought of sleeping outdoors. Why are people so strange? Izira would know what to do._  
  
_No sign. Practiced new spell. Melted half a forest. Not allowed back in Kiolas. Shield laughed at me. Pushed her into a puddle._  
  
_No sign. Shield fistfought a mercenary for his coin purse. Bought lunch and hair baubles. And she says I'm the weird one. >:|_  
  
_No sign. Feel sick. Just a cold._  
  
_No sign. Shield caught on. Insists I rest for the day. Absurd. I've had worse. Shield tried to steAl my penNCL nO Slept anyway. Will not forgive her for this. Feel bad._  
  
_No sign. Bad. Want mom._  
  
_No sign. Feeling better. Will ask around for information near Ephedian border. Will be careful._  
  
_No sign. Delivered a letter. Shield says it was brave. It was on the way. I don't care about her opinions. What would Izira do?_  
  
_No sign. Rockslide nearly crushed camp today. Shield nearly burned out power deflecting it. Idiot. Resting now._  
  
_No sign. Auriana._  
  
_No sign. Rainy season. Beginning to think this search is hopeless. Auriana told me about the Academy. Not my kind of place. She had friends there. I had friends once. She told me we're friends now. I don't know enough about friendship to argue. Ask dad when I see him again._  
  
_No sign. Practiced a duo strategy with Auriana. Nearly broke her arm. :( She was alright. Will avoid throwing her so hard next time._  
  
_No sign. Learned a Voltan walking song. Voltans sing a lot. Did Xerans? Ask mom._  
  
_No sign. On the way to Ephedian border for more information. Haven't heard anything about mom and dad. They must be hidden from Gramorr very well. Record-keeper will know._  
  
_no no no no no no no no no_  
  
_No sign. Don't know what number day it is. Can't count. Wish Izira were here. She must be alive. She has to be._  
  
_No sign. Auriana is alright. I think we are friends. She held my hand. I felt better. Being friends is nice._  
  
_No sign. Auriana doesn't have a family either._  
  
_No sign. Hopeless search. Scoured every inch of this stupid continent with no trace. Need a lead— any lead. Izira would know what to do. Too bad she's dead._  
  
_No sign. Auriana asked today where I would hide something precious. Said in a safe. She said it would depend on who she's hiding it from. Asked what she meant. She said Gramorr wants power, so the queen must have hid the princess somewhere there was no power. Ask dad Sneak into royal library._  
  
_No sign. Start at bottom of the list. Have Auriana help me open a vortex to "Earth." With luck, won't kill her in the process. Don't want to be alone again._

[Scattered entries from Talia's travelogue. The dates are in Ephedian and span approximately two and a half years. Likely, these are not the only events that happened in this timeframe. The pages are smudged with ashes and blue crystal dust falls from the pages when moved.]

* * *

 

[Auriana never kept a journal, but she did keep a few drawings she did before meeting Iris. One is a unicorn. The other is a very lumpy rendition of Talia heroically protecting a town from a rockslide with a double-bladed scythe. The rest were ruined from an accidental smoothie spill.]


	13. Act 2: Recovery- Chapter 1: What's in a Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back bitches

In the relative quiet of the smoothie bar, Nathaniel clicked his pen. He clicked it again, and again, and before too long he was clicking it very rapidly and to the point one of the few patrons currently at the smoothie bar looked up.  
  
"Dude," Doug said. "Find your chill."  
  
Nathaniel set the pen down. "Sorry," he sighed. "It's just— I'm having some trouble deciding what I want the dedication to say. I've got the message down, but— this is gonna sound stupid."  
  
"A lot of things sound stupid," Doug replied. "I mean, I'm like the _king_ of saying stupid shit. Try me."  
  
Nat pursed his lips. He tapped his finger on his math notebook, filled with relatively neat notes on parabolas and line graphs with X and Y, though with an odd page filled to bursting with drawings of comic book characters, all in pen because Nathaniel had some moral objection to writing in pencil. At the end of the unit's notes there was some blank space, and this was where he was planning out phrases— five were scratched out and seven more were annotated. One was circled, and this was the one he was rewriting.  
  
"So, it's gonna be for like, a bracelet, right," he said. "You know that one we saw in the shop off Third the other day and I was like, _wow, Iris would really like that?_ For custom orders you can add a note, and I was gonna write one anyway because Iris is classy and you can't give a classy gift without a note, but it can't just say 'To Iris.' It needs her last name."  
  
Doug didn't see the issue. "So put her last name, dude," he said. "I mean— oh my God."  
  
Nat squirmed.  
  
"You don't know her _last name_ ," Doug realized, in a mixture of horror and delight. "Dude! You don't know your _girlfriend's_ last name!"  
  
"Please stop shouting," Nat muttered, wanting to melt into the linoleum.  
  
"Oh my God!" Doug laughed. "Oh my God! You've been dating Iris for _how_ long and—" This got the attention of the smoothie bar's other patrons— Missy Robins, filing her nails in one of the booths as her entourage of two sat on the opposite bench.  
  
"What?" she said, perplexed. "Nathaniel doesn't know Iris's last name?"  
  
"It never came up!" Nat protested. "She never mentioned one and I didn't want to pressure her—"  
  
"Oh my God, you're kind of pathetic," Missy said— she let out a short cackle. "Wow! Who forgets to ask his own girlfriend's full name after he's been dating her for what— three months?"  
  
At that, Nat really did melt into the linoleum. Professionality be damned, he sank to his knees and pressed his head to the counter door under the register. "My life is over," he mumbled. "Now all of Sunny Bay knows I'm a pushover."  
  
"Everyone already knew that," Doug called. "And— okay— wait. What is her last name?"

Missy scoffed. "I don't know, why would _I_ know?" She tossed her hair. "She doesn't even go to school like a _normal_ person."  
  
"What if she doesn't have one?" Groupie Number One piped up. She was a squeaky little thing named Vivian, and her bright red ponytails bounced when she scootched forward. Her thumbs continued moving at lightning speed and her eyes did not move from her phone screen. "Like, she's kind of a weirdo anyway, what if she just— poof— no last name? I read about that happening sometimes if the family is like, cryptids or something."  
  
"Nobody cares about your conspiracy theories, Vivian," Missy was quick to say. "Look, we know she has a last name because she's from a pretty normal place and because her aunt is pretty normal."  
  
"I can guess," Doug ventured. "I'm pretty good with that. Maybe, ah— Smith!"  
  
Missy's other groupie, a big soccer player named Kate, snorted. "Lame."  
  
"I don't see any less-lame ideas coming from you," Doug said cooly. "Though I imagine all the plastic makes it hard to think."  
  
"Lameness aside," Nat admitted, standing back up. "It just doesn't sound right. I can't be Mr. Nathaniel Smith. That's dumb. It has to be something, you know— cooler. Maybe… Justice. How does Mr. Nathaniel Justice sound?"  
  
Now Doug snorted. "Like a rent-a-cop from a Canadian cartoon." Which was oddly specific but okay whatever.  
  
Missy made a disgusted noise. "You are so _revoltingly_ heterosexual," she said. "You need a girl co-worker so I stop wasting my time coming here and having to listen to all this."  
  
"Nobody's stopping you from going to that coffee shop across the street with the hot barista," Doug pointed out.  
  
"Well, Iris never goes to the coffee shop across the street," Missy shrugged. "Just how am I supposed to rub it in her face that my girlfriend is hotter than her boyfriend if she's never around to see my hot barista?" Which, given that it's Missy and Missy runs on spite and nail polish, is a fair point.  
  
"I mean, that's a thing, sure, and I hear your struggle," Nat admitted. "But like— okay. I can't just guess at Iris's last name. And I mean I'd call and ask her, but she's away in— uh— Florida. Family troubles, she said. Couldn't give much information. Busy time, y'know." Missy and Doug had begun looking at him strangely. He stopped talking. The bell to the door jingled, but he wasn't paying attention.  
  
"Dude, just call and ask," Doug insisted.  
  
"I can't just— just _ask_ Iris," Nat sputtered. "She's got— a lot on her plate right now."  
  
"Ask me what?" And that was the voice that knocked the wind from Nathaniel's lungs. There was some poem he'd read in English class about a voice that launched a thousand ships, but for now it just made him regret every decision that ever led up to this moment, including the ones surrounding his birth. Dramatic, perhaps, but when you're sixteen and trying to do something special for the girl you like a whole lot despite the various obstacles, _everything_ is a big deal.  
  
Nat swallowed. "Uh—" he managed.  
  
"Hey, look who it is!" Doug announced, hopping off his seat at the bar and spreading his arms. "It's Iris, back in town! I wondered when you were coming back. So, was it a secret tour? Come on, you can tell your biggest fan."  
  
Iris chuckled, though her heart wasn't in it. At least to Nat, she seemed… tired, for lack of a better word. Tense. There were dark circles under her eyes. She gripped the cuffs of her jacket and glanced at the door every now and then as if she was worried she was being followed— or like she was convinced something dangerous would burst from the walls.  
  
"Nothing like that, I promise," she said. "Just some family troubles. My, ah, parents— I've gotten back into contact with them, and they had a few problems that I had to go help them deal with. It's all sorted out for now."  
  
Doug nodded sympathetically. "Glad to hear it," he decided. "I guess the band is still on a break, huh?"  
  
"Yeah, for now," Iris agreed. "Sorry. I know how much you were looking forward to the album."  
  
Doug waved a hand. "I get it," he promised. "But like, when production is back on— you'll get me tickets to the concert, right?"  
  
Iris chuckled— this time was a little realer. "Of course," she said. "After all, you're our biggest fan, right?"  
  
Doug beamed— there was very little in the world that made him happier than personal validation of his tastes. Nat had known him since elementary school and was pretty sure that the only thing that could've made him happier was free cheesecake.  
  
Missy stood abruptly. "Oh— my— God," she announced, each word a different clause. She grabbed Iris by the shoulders and looked her up and down, one corner of her mouth lifting into what was almost a sneer but wasn't, not quite. Iris flinched, a tiny bit (tiny enough Missy didn't notice but Nat did). "You look _terrible_. LIke, what have you been doing? Those raccoon eyes? And— ugh— any more stress and you're going to have pimples until you're forty. And _when_ was the last time you exfoliated?"  
  
"I," Iris managed. She shrugged. "I've been busy? Why the sudden concern?"  
  
"Look," Missy said firmly. "So I've gotten over your boyfriend because, duh, girls are way hotter and I don't know how it took me this long to figure it out. But are we just going to throw away the rivalry we had? We had something special! Doesn't that mean _anything_ to you?"  
  
"Well, I—" Iris began. Missy didn't let her finish.  
  
"This is ridiculous!" Missy decided. "I can _not_ have a rival that's anything less than at her best! I am taking you to the spa tomorrow and that is final. Someone's got to clear those clogged pores before disaster strikes."  
  
"I appreciate the— uh— concern," Iris managed, pulling away. "But I'd really rather just stay home. I've got a lot to deal with. Two new housemates, for one. And there's some stuff I still need to do for my parents—"  
  
"Fuck them," Missy said firmly. "Okay? I may still not like you, but I can tell when a girl needs me time, and good God in heaven do you need me time. And since you're _obviously_ not going to give it to yourself, I'm going to have to call in the cavalry. I'll pick you up at ten tomorrow."  
  
"In the morning?" Iris asked doubtfully.  
  
Missy rolled her eyes. "No, we're going to the spa in the middle of the night— of _course_ we're going in the morning, you dumbass."  
  
"I—" Iris started. Again, Missy did not let her finish. She sniffed, tossed her hair, and snapped her fingers. Her groupies immediately stood, flanking her two steps behind.  
  
"I'm leaving," Missy announced. "Because I have reservations at the spa to make for tomorrow, you're welcome."  
  
With that, the three of them turned on their heels and marched out the door. Somewhere in the midst of all of that Doug had left as well, leaving Iris and Nathaniel and an otherwise-empty smoothie bar.  
  
Iris took a breath. She sat down at the counter and tugged her jacket further around her shoulders. Nat shoved his notebook under the counter— smooth, he thought. Real smooth.  
  
He cleared his throat. "It's, uh—" he began. "I'm glad you're back in town. I thought about waiting at the airport, but—"  
  
Iris let out a halfhearted laugh. "You can't exactly take a plane to Ephedia."  
  
"Ephedia," Nat repeated. Iris had told him that was where she'd been— an alien planet currently ruled by a usurper magician that summoned crystal monsters to do his bidding while the rightful king and queen— Iris's parents— were locked in the dungeon. Nathaniel was dating an alien-princess-superhero-popstar and somehow he'd been obtuse enough to never ask.  
  
"So does this mean, like—" he began without thinking and the reasonable part of him knew this was a ridiculous question to ask but his mouth had already said the words— "Your true form is a little green thing with a helium voice that wants me to take you to our leader?"  
  
"No, no, nothing like that," Iris promised. "Ephedians look like Earthlings. Talia told me there was something about common ancestry— the Ephedian's predecessors were galactic conquerors looking to expand their empire so they flung colonies across distant worlds, except the empire fell before anyone could really do much about Earth, and Earth doesn't have any magic anyway so they weren't very concerned with it— there's more but I wasn't really listening, so."  
  
Nat's head spun. "Stargate is real," he breathed. "Is— is that how you get from one place to another? Is there a Stargate on Earth that's kept a secret from even the government? Or does the government know about it and you and the rest of the band are, like, agents? Are you going to have to kill me after telling me all of this?"  
  
Iris knew very little about Stargate because she'd just watched the movie and Nathaniel had geeked out for half of it so she didn't get a few key bits, but she got the jist of what he was saying. Though there were a lot of similarities between the Stargates and the vortexes that Ephedians used to travel between worlds— except Stargates were permanent for as long as they were open and you could just dial a series of symbols instead of having two people cast the same spell. But the point was there and she supposed it was good Nathaniel was getting it— kind of.  
  
"We don't use Stargates, as far as I know there isn't one on Earth, the government isn't involved, and I promise I don't have to kill you now that you're in on the secret," Iris promised. "I know it's a lot to take in."  
  
"A little bit," Nat admitted. "But I think I can take it. So— are you… okay?"  
  
Iris shrugged. "I'm no longer in imminent danger."  
  
"Yeah, but," Nat repeated. "Are you okay?"

Iris paused.  
  
"Not really," she admitted. "I mean, like I said— I'm the heir to the Ephedian throne. It'll be awhile until I'm actually queen, but still, there are people all over Ephedia that have decided that I'm their one hope for salvation. And now Gramorr knows that I'm protecting Earth as well, he could attack again. Two entire worlds depend on me for protection."  
  
She smiled apologetically. "I'm spread a little thin," she said. "I'm sorry. I know that all this puts pressure on you, too. I can't go on dates with you like a normal girl would be able to. Supposedly there's going to be a day I'll be able to do that, but…" she shrugged. "Until then, Ephedia comes first."  
  
It sounded dangerously like a breakup. "Wait, are you—" he attempted. "You're not— are you breaking up with me?"  
  
Iris looked horrified. "What? No! No, of course not! It's just—" she pursed her lips. "If that'd be easier then we can take a break, yes. I know that trying to keep up a relationship through all of this would be hard on you. I'd never be able to make a date for certain, and— well. Lately I haven't been at my best mentally, either. Thinking about relationships has kind of gone on the back burner."  
  
"But!" she added, ever the optimist even in her current state, "Izira— Talia's sister, she leads the Resistance I told you about— told me that after the recent victories, Gramorr is withdrawing and we have a moment to breathe. Considering the energy it takes to get to Earth, it's unlikely he'll pose a threat to us for some time."

"How kind of him," Nat commented. Then he sighed. "But you still haven't answered my question."  
  
"I'll be okay," Iris promised. "I'm out of magic, is all. I'll recover from that, and then it's just a few bad dreams to deal with. Nothing a little NyQuil can't fix."  
  
That didn't sound good. "If you need to talk it out," Nat promised. "I'll be here. I mean you did just kind of participate in a life-changing battle for the freedom of your race, so if there's anything about that you need to get off your chest— you've got my number, and my address and stuff."  
  
Iris smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Nat," she said. "Yeah, I'll— I'll keep you posted."  
  
"Buddy system, remember?" Nat pointed out. "I've got your back. Maybe I can't do— alien superhero things, but I can help you deal with what all that means."  
  
"I appreciate it," Iris said. She smiled— for a second Nat saw a bit of her usual sunny disposition peeking out from behind the clouds. "I should head back home. Aunt Ellen's not happy."  
  
Ordinarily Nat would've doubted that, but when he'd stopped by to check on her, Aunt Ellen had seemed extremely worried. No doubt Iris was going to face the lecture of a lifetime.  
  
"Call me when you can," he said. "Alright?"  
  
"Alright," Iris promised. He really was too good to her. Maybe she should get him something— next time she's out and about, she'll get him a new jacket or something. He'd mentioned that his is wearing out— but it's Nat, and that's the closest he ever gets to complaining or, indeed, doing anything about his problems.  
  
She left. When the door shut, Nathaniel let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Were her parents really back in the picture? Was he really going to have to gain their approval, too? He'd best step up his game— and maybe learn her last name while he was at it.


End file.
